Investigation of water footprint, virtual water and water use of three groups of autumn and spring products, vegetables (tomatoes and potatoes), industrial (sugar beet) and fodder (fodder corn) in Isfahan.

Subject Areas : Water Resources

mojtaba mobaraki ¹ , morteza mobaraki ²

1 - Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Water and Soil, Zabol University, Zabol, Iran
2 - Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Iran

Received: 2021-04-16 Accepted : 2021-05-20 Published : 2021-05-22

Keywords: Green Water, blue water, gray water, white water, Requierment water,

Abstract :

One of the practical solutions for water resources management is to estimate the plant's water needs and determine the amount of water consumed at different stages of crop production. In order to calculate the amount of water consumed by agricultural products in the growth stages, the virtual water index and water footprint are used. In this study, first the water requirement of sugar beet, potato, forage corn and tomato plants was calculated, then the average volume of water consumption, virtual water, water footprint and water use efficiency of these products for the statistical period 2010-2017 were obtained. The results showed that among the studied crops, potatoes with the amount of 2101.291 m3/ton had the highest water footprint and sugar beet with the amount of 1094.68 m3/ton had the lowest water footprint. The highest amount of virtual water consumed was related to fodder corn (0.39 m3/kg) and the lowest amount was related to tomatoes (0.19 m3/kg). The lowest water use efficiency (2.82 kg/m3/ha) also belonged to sugar beet. Also in this study, another component of water footprint called white water footprint was examined, according to which the highest amount was related to potatoes with the amount (2006.7 m3/kg) and the lowest amount was related to sugar beet with the amount of (1003/833 m3/kg). Therefore, according to the obtained results, it can be said that the tomato crop is more suitable for cultivation than other crops in the study area due to its low virtual water content and high water consumption efficiency.