Impact of Crop Replacement Concept as a Solution for Water Scarcity Problem

Abstract

Water scarcity is one of the important global risks causing a great dispute around the world. How to obtain a suitable water quantity or quality that affects the economy of the world. Egypt is a country suffering from water scarcity due to the high rates of population growth with a fixed share of the Nile water which is considered as the main Egyptian water resource. The present work aims to apply the concept of virtual water on the agricultural products to suggest the replacement of crops having relatively high water consumption and low prices with other crops having low water consumption and high prices. The impacts of the replacement process was achieved through the classification of selected 22 crops and grouped into four groups based on their Specific Water Demand (SWD) and their world prices, then the crops contained in the group of the lowest water consumption and the highest price will be proposed to be exported and the crops in the group of the highest water consumption with the lowest price will be proposed to be imported. The effect of crop replacement within the 22 crops was measured by calculating the Relative Specific Water Demand (RSWD), the Relative Area (RA) saved and consequently the relative cash return. A Matlab program was constructed and calibrated through comparing its results with the CropWat model of FAO database to calculate the SWD of the selected crops cultivated in Egypt. Regarding the results, “Barley” was the best crop proposed to be imported and replaced by Tomato where the RSWD reaches 15.70 m3/ton, the relative area saved reaches 10.138 ha/ton and the relative cash return reaches 5691 (1000$/ton). On the other hand, the process of replacement gives a complete vision to the decision makers to decide the priority of the imported crops according to the local market needs taking into consideration the economic situation in the country.