Water Footprint Index Study for dominant crops in Urmia lake basin and its relationship with irrigation management

Authors

1 M. Sc. Student in Irrigation & drainage, Univ. of Urmia, Iran

2 Assoc. Prof., Dept., of Water Engineering, Univ. of Urmia, Iran

Abstract

Detection and evaluation of the actual amount of water used for different agricultural products is of paramount importance that such an assessment can identify and provide appropriate solutions to reduce water consumption in agriculture very effectively. In this research, to evaluate the agricultural products from view point of irrigation and water consumption, the Relative Irrigation Supply (RIS) as an indicator that shows accuracy of excessive irrigation when it value is more than 1, else when it value be less than 1 the consumed water is less than irrigation requirement and water footprint indicators (WF) were used for main crops in Urmia lake basin. The water footprint of products was estimated for two component of blue water (WF blue) and green water (WF green). Then actual water footprint was calculated by applying irrigation efficiency. The results showed that the maximum amount of water footprint was for wheat in Maragheh station, in which the blue, green and actual blue water footprints were 1779.77, 729.96 and 2150.91 m3 ton-1, respectively. Also the lowest water footprint was for corn in Sarab station in which the blue, green and actual blue water footprint were 99.86 m3 ton-1, 19.75 m3 ton-1 and 165.28 m3 ton-1 respectively. The Relative Irrigation Supply index (RIS) values were determined for main crops in seven meteorological stations of Lake Urmia basin and this index showed an excessive irrigation for all crops. While alfalfa and wheat, had less amount of RIS than other products.   

Keywords

References

 
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Water and Soil Science
Volume 27, Issue 4
January 2017
Pages 37-48

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