Choosing the best province in potato production using water footprint assessment

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 MSc Student of Ecohydrology Engineering, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Iran

3 Associate Professor, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The water footprint is considered as an indicator of freshwater resources appropriation which brings valuable insight about the environmental impact of a given product. The current study aims to determine the best country’s province for the potato crop production in terms of fresh water consumption using water footprint indicator. For this purpose, first, the data on harvested area, production and yield in major producing provinces were collected for the crop year 2014-15. Then, to calculate the water footprint in each province, information such as crop water requirement and effective precipitation were collected separately for each province and finally water footprint components were determined. The results showed that green, blue and grey water footprint had the most contribution in all provinces, respectively. According to calculated total water footprint, Hamedan province is the best region for potato harvesting and Semnan province is the most difficult region for this purpose. Water footprint average for potato production was calculated to be 527 m3/ton in the country. According to water footprint indicator and potato production of provinces, it was determined that in mentioned crop year, Hamedan province by using 338 MCM and North Khorasan by using 18 MCM of water, used the highest and the lowest amount of water for this agricultural production, respectively.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

 
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Iranian journal of Ecohydrology
Volume 4, Issue 2
June 2017
Pages 523-532

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History

  • Receive Date: 30 December 2016
  • Revise Date: 23 April 2017
  • Accept Date: 16 March 2017

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