Assessment of water footprint of production: A case study for Diyarbakır province

Abstract

Detailed analysis of agricultural, livestock and domestic/industrial water footprint for Diyarbakir province  The effect of dry and wet seasons on the water footprint of the study area  Virtual water contents of agricultural products growing in the region Rapid urbanization, increasing per capita water consumption and pollution together with the developing industry necessitated to process more effective measurement, management and decision mechanisms on regional water resources. The concept of water footprint (WF) is a new parameter that has been introduced to the scientific literature in recent years similar to the ecological and carbon footprints. The water footprint of any field or product refers to the total volume of water resources that is processed or contaminated directly or indirectly during the production process. The current work is one of the first studies assessing and discussing the water footprint indicators of Diyarbakir province. Figure A. Water footprint of production in Diyarbakır province for 2008-2019 Purpose: The main purposes of this study are; analyzing blue and green water footprints of agricultural, livestock, industrial production and domestic use in Diyarbakır province for 2008-2019, determining the virtual water contents of crops produced in the region, analyzing the effect of dry and wet seasons on the water footprint of the region. Theory and Methods: Recently developed water footprint methodology has been used. The blue and green evapotranspiration amounts were estimated by CWR option in CROPWAT 8.0 software. Wide range of statistical data including long term meteorological data, areal rainfall statistics, local crop coefficients, cultivation area, crop production amounts, animal statistics, industrial and domestic water consumption data have been utilized. Results: Average annual water footprint of the study area of 11 years between 2008-2019 was determined to be 3.4 Gm 3. Agriculture is the most water intensive sector being responsible from 86 % of total water footprint. Wheat is identified to be the most important crop which consumes around 42 % of total (ground, surface and rainfall) water. The green water ratio of wheat was determined as 73 % which significantly reduces the blue water dependency of the region. On the other hand, cotton, grapes and maize production were found to be critical because of their high production amounts together with having extremely high blue (surface and ground) water shares, specifically at the study area. The water footprint indicators of wet and dry seasons were also analyzed and discussed. It is determined that, the blue water ratio could be significantly increased up to 60 % in the dry seasons, despite considerably lower crop production amounts. Conclusion: The study area owns very fertile lands for crop production. However, limited water resources and scarcity of the region restrict the agricultural and other water intensive sectors' activities. Sustainability of fresh water resources of the study area could be provided by reducing the wate...

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

“…Especially in arid and semi-arid regions, more irrigation water is needed, i.e., blue water. In Van province, 87.6% of the WF total consisted of WF crop , and this was supported by similar studies (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2004;Aldaya and LIamas, 2008;Muratoglu, 2019Muratoglu, , 2020. The WF blue and WF green components of WF crop were found to be 4.81 billion m 3 and 2.85 billion m 3 , respectively.…”

“…Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2012) stated that 87% of the global WF livestock value corresponded to WF green , but in the Van province, livestock production dependent on blue water was carried out like crop production. When the values of Van province were compared with the Upper Tigris River Basin (Muratoglu, 2019) and Diyarbakır province (Muratoglu, 2020), it was seen that the crop, livestock and domestic-industrial water distributions were similar but that the WF blue value within the WF livestock value was higher in the Van province. This may be related to the use of high levels of blue water to increase the yield in the feed crops due to the high number of animals-in addition to being an arid region of Van province.…”

“…Water consumed for the production of feed crops is included in WF crop (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2012). However, there are also studies in literature where the production of feed crops is included in WF livestock (Muratoglu, 2019(Muratoglu, , 2020.…”

“…Gray water is an important concept in regions where industrial activities are intense. However, in regions with low industrial capacity, gray water footprint does not need to be included in the total water footprint calculations (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2004;Hoekstra et al, 2011;Muratoglu, 2019Muratoglu, , 2020. Therefore, since the industrial activities in Van province are low (Kanberoglu, 2016), the gray water footprint was not evaluated, and the industrial and domestic water footprint were analyzed together.…”

“…The per capita water footprint values are the best approach (Muratoglu, 2020) for a comparison with the water footprints of different regions (Cheng et al, 2019). The per capita water footprint in developed regions are in the range of 1250 to 2850 m 3 .…”