Effects of Climate and Land Use Change on Agricultural Water Consumption in Baicheng County

Abstract

Changes in climate and land type directly affect the transformation and utilization of regional water resources. To analyze the evolutionary characteristics and drivers of agricultural water consumption (AWC) in arid regions, the Baicheng County is selected as an example. Based on the meteorological and land use/cover data from 1990 to 2020, the Penman–Monteith model and sensitivity method were used for analysis. The results show that: (1) The water consumption of major crops during the growth period was increasing, which was caused by climate change and changes in agricultural planting structure. (2) The sensitivity of AWC to meteorological factors was as follows: mean temperature (1.56) > mean wind speed (0.6) > precipitation (−0.12) > sunshine duration (−0.06). Temperature and wind speed were the dominant factors contributing to increased water consumption in oasis agriculture. (3) The change in land type was more obvious, mainly in cultivated land and urban and rural residential land with obvious growth, while the area of water area, forestland, and grassland showed a decreasing trend. In the past 30 years, the increase in cultivated land has reached 24.32%. The increase in cultivated land area was an important reason for the increase in AWC.