Abstract. A core goal of sustainable agricultural water resources management is to implement a lower water footprint (WF), i.e. higher water productivity,
and to maximize economic benefits in crop production. However, previous studies mostly focused on crop water productivity from a single physical
perspective. Little attention is paid to synergies and trade-offs between water consumption and economic value creation of crop production.
Distinguishing between blue and green water composition, grain and cash crops, and irrigation and rainfed production modes in China, this study
calculates the production-based WF (PWF) and derives the economic value-based WF (EWF) of 14 major crops in 31 provinces for each year over
2001–2016. The synergy evaluation index (SI) of PWF and EWF is proposed to reveal the synergies and trade-offs of crop water productivity and its
economic value from the WF perspective. Results show that both the PWF and EWF of most considered crops in China decreased with the increase in crop
yield and prices. The high (low) values of both the PWF and EWF of grain crops tended to cluster obviously in space and there existed a huge difference
between blue and green water in economic value creation. Moreover, the SI revealed a serious incongruity between PWFs and EWFs both in grain and
cash crops. Negative SI values occurred mostly in north-west China for grain crops, and overall more often and with lower values for cash crops.
Unreasonable regional planting structure and crop prices resulted in this incongruity, suggesting the need to promote regional coordinated
development to adjust the planting structure according to local conditions and to regulate crop prices rationally.
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