The Agricultural Water Footprint of Al-Qadisiyah Governorate, Southern Iraq

Abstract

Rapid urbanization, pollution, and increasing water consumption together with climate change necessitated to process of more effective measurement, management, and decision mechanisms on regional water resources. The concept of water footprint (WF) is a parameter that has been introduced to the scientific literature in recent years similar to the ecological and carbon footprints. The WF of any field or product refers to the total volume of water resources that are processed or contaminated directly or indirectly during the production process. The current work is the first study assessing and discussing the agricultural water footprint of an Iraqi governorate by analyzing blue and green WFs of agricultural production in Qadisiyah governorate, southern Iraq for 2010-2020. Recently developed WF methodology has been used. The blue and green evapotranspiration amounts were estimated by the crop water requirement (CWR) option in CROPWAT 8.0 software. The statistical data including meteorological data, rainfall statistics, local crop coefficients, cultivation area, crop production amounts and animal statistics data have been utilized. The average annual agricultural WF of Qadisiyah governorate for the 10 years between 2010-2020 was determined to be 1,315,201,621 Mm3/yr. The largest water-consuming sector is crop production (54%). Cereal and feed crops are the main component of water consumption. The rice crop followed by wheat is the primary crop production comprising about 44% of the total WF and require water supplied from rivers. Vegetable production has only 14% of the crops WF. The green WF was only 15% of the crop production WF. The largest share of water used for animal production is related to broiler chickens (44%) and 37% for dairy cattle. The study area is fertile land for crop production. However, limited water resources and scarcity of the region restrict the agricultural activities. The sustainability of freshwater resources of the governorate could be provided by reducing the WF and blue water contents. This study is expected to contribute to the national authorities to develop more accurate irrigation water management policies.