Water and Carbon footprint perspective in Italian durum wheat production

Abstract

Agriculture has a strong influence on water consumption; the scarcity of water in some areas is a problem, which affects the balance of entire production areas. Global water resources are widely used for food production; some areas of the Mediterranean are scarce in water and the water demand is expected to increase in the future due to population growth. In addition, carbon emissions related to agricultural production represent about 35% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Starting from these considerations, this study investigates water and carbon footprint in italian durum wheat cultivation, taking into account the production from 2011 to 2015. Results showed an extreme variability of these indicators across the country. The regions below 5000m3ha−1 of water consumption (dedicated to durum wheat production) are located in the South, whilst the highest values are recorded in the Centre and in the North. With regard to the values of the water surface consumption, the situation is quite the opposite: indeed, these are mainly the Southern and the Adriatic regions that have a high value of the ratio between water footprint (WF) and total agricultural area. carbon footprint (CF) showed a similar trend; its highest value was found in Northern Italy (2462kg CO2ha−1), the ratio between the North and the Centre-North is 1.30. Policy suggestions that address management of water resources and sources of carbon emissions could increase the environmental sustainability of italian durum wheat production.