Abstract
Sustainable development requires modifying the current consumption pattern of natural resources. This study investigates efficient tactics for reducing the unsustainability and inefficiency of human’s food-related blue water consumption alongside improving national environmental and socioeconomic status. As a case study for Iran, 15 alternative management scenarios (AMS) were defined compared to the current on-farm management, and their effects were assessed on a monthly scale. Based on the results, 45.5 billion m3 y−1 (BCM) blue water is consumed within the croplands, 78% and 34% of which are unsustainable and inefficient, respectively. AMCs reduces the unsustainable and inefficient blue water consumption by 2–17 BCM and 2–13 BCM, respectively. The combination of yield gap closure, drip irrigation, soil mulching, and deficit irrigation has the largest effect on blue water saving; it releases or changes the status of monthly blue water scarcity in 11 provinces; increases field-employees by 132%, food security by 9%, international food-export by 87%, and gross domestic production by 54%. However, it doesn’t fully address blue water overconsumption in the summer period; hence, further measures are needed to reduce blue water scarcity to the sustainable level in these environmental hotspots.
Highlights
Agriculture is the biggest freshwater user in the world and has the largest contribution of 92% in global blue water consumption (Hoekstra et al 2012)
Our results show that environmental flow requirements (EFR) violations mainly occur during the dry periods, while there is no blue water scarcity index (BWS) over the wet period of DecemberMarch; when the natural runoff is far beyond the EFRs
Blue water saving possibilities were assessed through defining 15 alternative management scenarios compared to the base case by considering the individual or combined effects of four major measures: yield gap closure, drip irrigation, soil mulching, and deficit irrigation
Summary
Agriculture is the biggest freshwater user in the world and has the largest contribution of 92% in global blue water consumption (Hoekstra et al 2012). Expanding irrigated lands without overshooting the sustainable blue water availability is only possible in 25% of the global croplands (Rosa et al 2020). Such expansion may provide 37% more calories, enough to feed 2.8 billion people, at the cost of 408 billion m3 year-1 extra blue water consumption (48% more than the current condition) (Rosa et al 2018). Improving technologies and agricultural practices or modifying crops traits are among such methods (Ali and Talukder 2008; Chukalla et al 2015; Jagermeyr et al 2015; Rosa et al 2018). YGC could be achieved through a transition toward drip/sprinkler irrigation (Jagermeyr et al 2015), shifting cropping dates, modifying
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