 |
| Titel |
A Site-sPecific Agricultural water Requirement and footprint Estimator (SPARE:WATER 1.0) |
| VerfasserIn |
S. Multsch, Y. A. Al-Rumaikhani, H.-G. Frede, L. Breuer |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
|
| Sprache |
Englisch
|
| ISSN |
1991-959X
|
| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Geoscientific Model Development ; 6, no. 4 ; Nr. 6, no. 4 (2013-07-23), S.1043-1059 |
| Datensatznummer |
250017861
|
| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/gmd-6-1043-2013.pdf |
|
|
|
|
|
| Zusammenfassung |
| The agricultural water footprint addresses the quantification of water
consumption in agriculture, whereby three types of water to grow crops are
considered, namely green water (consumed rainfall), blue water (irrigation
from surface or groundwater) and grey water (water needed to dilute
pollutants). By considering site-specific properties when calculating the
crop water footprint, this methodology can be used to support decision
making in the agricultural sector on local to regional scale. We therefore
developed the spatial decision support system SPARE:WATER that allows us to
quantify green, blue and grey water footprints on regional scale.
SPARE:WATER is programmed in VB.NET, with geographic information system
functionality implemented by the MapWinGIS library. Water requirements and
water footprints are assessed on a grid basis and can then be aggregated for
spatial entities such as political boundaries, catchments or irrigation
districts. We assume inefficient irrigation methods rather than optimal
conditions to account for irrigation methods with efficiencies other than
100%. Furthermore, grey water is defined as the water needed to leach out
salt from the rooting zone in order to maintain soil quality, an important
management task in irrigation agriculture. Apart from a thorough
representation of the modelling concept, we provide a proof of concept where
we assess the agricultural water footprint of Saudi Arabia. The entire water
footprint is 17.0 km3 yr−1 for 2008, with a blue water
dominance of 86%. Using SPARE:WATER we are able to delineate regional hot
spots as well as crop types with large water footprints, e.g. sesame or
dates. Results differ from previous studies of national-scale resolution,
underlining the need for regional estimation of crop water footprints. |
| |
|
| Teil von |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|