Regional water footprint assessment for a semi-arid basin in India

Abstract

Water footprint assessment enables us to pinpoint the impacts and limitations of the current systems. Identifying vulnerabilities across various regions and times helps us prepare for suitable actions for improving water productivity and promoting sustainable water use. This study aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the sector-wise water footprint in the Banas River Basin from 2008–2020. The water footprint of the Banas River Basin was estimated as 20.2 billion cubic meters (BCM)/year from all sectors. The water footprint has increased over the year with the increase in population, the number of industries, and crop production demand. The average annual water footprint of crop production varied from 11.4–23.1 BCM/year (mean 19.3 BCM/year) during the study period. Results indicate that the water footprint has nearly doubled in the past decade. Wheat, bajra, maize, and rapeseed & mustard make up 67.4% of crop production’s total average annual water footprint. Suitable measures should be implemented in the basin to improve water productivity and promote sustainable water use in agriculture, which accounts for nearly 95.5% of the total water footprint (WF) of the Banas basin. The outcomes of the study provide a reference point for further research and planning of appropriate actions to combat water scarcity challenges in the Banas basin.

Optimization of virtual water flows in agriculture by changing cropping patterns using an integrated approach

“…In order to account for spatial variations and minimize the number of required simulations, the basin was divided into homogeneous land units (LU) based on factors such as land use, soil, and agro-climatological characteristics [ 27 ]. To achieve this, different thematic layers, including soil, AESR, LULC, basin boundaries, and district boundaries, were overlaid, and LU polygons were generated for each district using the intersect feature in ArcGIS [ 28 ].…”

Agricultural Water Footprint Studies for Sustainable Agricultural Water Management -A Review

“…It was opined that in order to have a comprehensive understanding of virtual water trade, non-water factors of production need to be taken into consideration". Mehla [37] conducted study to estimate water footprint of major crops of Banas river basin and found out that the water footprint doubled in last decade for major crops of basin such as wheat, bajra, maize, rapeseed and mustard.…”

Methodology for the assessment of poor-data water resources

“…However, there are precedents of successful modeling with shorter periods ranging from 6 to 15 years ( Marcinkowski & Mirosław-Świątek, 2020 ; Wielgat et al, 2021 ; Goshime et al, 2021 ; Mehla, 2022 ). Moreover, literature suggests modeling periods varying from 15 to 20 years ( Khoshkhoo et al, 2015 ; Rasoulzadeh Gharibdousti, Kharel & Stoecker, 2019 ; Dehghanipour et al, 2019 ; Lerat et al, 2020 ; Bazzi, Ebrahimi & Aminnejad, 2021 ; Nazeer et al, 2022 ), highlighting the preference for extended modeling periods ( Schuol et al, 2008 ; Li et al, 2015 ; Adla, Tripathi & Disse, 2019 ; García-Romero et al, 2019 ; Lakshmi & Sudheer, 2021 ) that include validation and warm-up spans as well as modeling for complete or discontinuous periods ( Zhang et al, 2011 ).…”