An assessment of the urban water footprint and blue water scarcity: A case study for Van (Turkey)

Abstract

Today, most of the world’s population faces water scarcity, while global warming, urbanization, industrialization and population increases continue to increase the severity of the pressure on water resources. Management of water resources plays a key role in the sustainability of agricultural production. The water footprint (WF) is different in comparison to other water statistics because it takes direct and indirect water consumption into account, and helps in the management of water resources. Within this context, the WF of Van province, which is Turkey’s most easterly located arid region, was calculated from 2004 to 2019. The study area covers lake Van, which is Turkey's largest lake, and the Van basin with an area of 23.334 km2 and a population of 1.136.757 (2019). In the calculations, crop (WFcrop), livestock (WFlivestock), and domestic and industrial water footprints (WFdomestic+industrial) were evaluated separately, and blue and green water footprints (WFblue and WFgreen) were analyzed in detail. According to the results, the average WF of Van province was found to be 8.73 billion m3 year-1. Throughout the province, 87.6% of the WF is composed of WFcrop, 4.9% is WFlivestock and 7.5% is WFdomestic+industrial. Of the WFcrop, 62.5% depends on WFblue, i.e., freshwater. Most of the WFlivestock consisted of dairy cattle (49%) and sheep (38%). The average WFdomestic+industrial for 2004 to 2019 was 0.64 billion m3 year-1. The average per capita water footprint of Van province was found to be 889.9 m3 year-1 capita-1. In addition, the province is classified as severe water scarcity (257%). This study is one of the first province-based calculations of WF in Turkey and is the first study to bring a different aspect to published literature by including residual soil moisture from the winter months. As a result of this study, the WFblue of the WFcrop is above the worldwide average and should be reduced by changing the crop pattern or synchronizing the planting and harvest dates of the crops to a period that benefits from precipitation. In addition, this study is expected to contribute to new studies for calculating the provincial scale WF and will have positive effects on agricultural planning, water allocation and the sustainability of water resources.

Water Accounting for Food Security: Virtual Water and Water Productivity in the Case of Tunisian Olive Oil Value Chain

“…Other researchers have studied the assessment of virtual water in some productive systems, such as the cereal sector [1,18] and olive growing sector [19]. Other studies were focusing in several methodological issues and in various case studies on water productivity [20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

Estimating the Water Footprint of the Four Important Cereal Crops in the Euphrates River Basin, Iraq

“…Water is considered one of vital issues for achieving economic development in general and agricultural development in particular, as agriculture is fundamental basis of achieving food safety in producing crops into assembly the food consumption needs for populations, such world is witnessing increase pressures on food and most than 500 millions peoples suffering from food shortages continuously [1]. In Iraq, there was and still is an urgent need to develop agricultural production, especially the production of strategic grains (wheat, rice, barley, maize) as the most important crops of the food security system [2] The application of modern concepts to evaluate water consumption, such as the concept of the water footprint, to estimate the volume of water needed to produce various commodities that people 1215 (2023) 012053 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1215/1/012053 2 consume, has become very important, especially in light of the water crisis in Iraq due to climate changes and the excessive use of upstream countries [3]. Climate change has led to an increase in the need for water as well as constructions for many dams on Tigris and Euphrates riveres in Turkey, Syria, and Iran to a lack of water imports, so there is a necessary need to reduce consumption and good planning of water resources and determine the water needs of the main crops [4].…”

Exploring the Regional Coordination Relationship between Water Utilization and Urbanization Based on Decoupling Analysis: A Case Study of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region

“…Meanwhile, rapid urbanization development would further bring about huge pressure on regional water security. (1) Urban population explosion, as well as the prosperous development of industry and commerce, exacerbates water consumption [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. (2) Excessive pollutant discharge from the industrial, domestic, and agricultural sectors triggers serious water pollution problems and further aggravates the shortage of available water resources [ 5 , 7 ].…”

“…Thus, the virtual water footprint (VWF) can indicate the quantity of water consumption, including the water content used in the production processes of different regions (e.g., country [ 16 ], urban agglomeration [ 8 ], basin [ 17 ], city [ 17 ], etc. ), industrial sectors (e.g., agriculture [ 6 , 18 ], import/export trade [ 19 ], etc. ), or products (e.g., crops [ 20 , 21 ], social infrastructure [ 22 ], etc.)…”

“…), or products (e.g., crops [ 20 , 21 ], social infrastructure [ 22 ], etc.) [ 6 ]. Numerous studies have been carried out to evaluate regional water consumption using the VWF model.…”