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| Titel |
Assessing water footprint at river basin level: a case study for the Heihe River Basin in northwest China |
| VerfasserIn |
Z. Zeng, J. Liu, P. H. Koeneman, E. Zarate, A. Y. Hoekstra |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1027-5606
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ; 16, no. 8 ; Nr. 16, no. 8 (2012-08-16), S.2771-2781 |
| Datensatznummer |
250013427
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/hess-16-2771-2012.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Increasing water scarcity places considerable importance on the
quantification of water footprint (WF) at different levels. Despite progress
made previously, there are still very few WF studies focusing on specific
river basins, especially for those in arid and semi-arid regions. The aim of
this study is to quantify WF within the Heihe River Basin (HRB), a basin
located in the arid and semi-arid northwest of China. The findings show that
the WF was 1768 million m3 yr−1 in the HRB over 2004–2006.
Agricultural production was the largest water consumer, accounting for
96% of the WF (92% for crop production and 4% for livestock
production). The remaining 4% was for the industrial and domestic
sectors. The "blue" (surface- and groundwater) component of WF was 811 million m3 yr−1.
This indicates a blue water proportion of 46%, which is much higher than
the world average and China's average, which is mainly due to the aridness
of the HRB and a high dependence on irrigation for crop production. However,
even in such a river basin, blue WF was still smaller than "green" (soil water) WF,
indicating the importance of green water. We find that blue WF exceeded blue
water availability during eight months per year and also on an annual basis.
This indicates that WF of human activities was achieved at a cost of
violating environmental flows of natural freshwater ecosystems, and such a
WF pattern is not sustainable. Considering the large WF of crop production,
optimizing the crop planting pattern is often a key to achieving more
sustainable water use in arid and semi-arid regions. |
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