Water Footprint of Rice in Iraq

Abstract

There is a shortage of water and increasing demand for food in Iraq and other areas of the world will be difficult to meet in the future. Because agriculture is the primary consumer of water, without savings in consumption and precise knowledge of the actual need for water to irrigate important crops, food security cannot be guaranteed. Water footprint (WF) is an inclusive measure for freshwater use that can be used to evaluate the impact on both water volume and distribution of human water consumption. In this study, following the WF approach, the CROPWAT software with the crop water requirement option, the WF of paddy rice cultivation in 7 Iraqi provinces during the year 2017 were estimated. The results showed that the Iraqi paddy rice WF is 3072 m3/ton, which is higher than the global average (1325 m3/ton), the highest water of WF belongs to Muthanna Province with 6688.5 m3/ton and the lowest belongs to Al-Qadysia Province with 2405.5 m3/ton. About 816,704,748 m3/yr of water were used to irrigate paddy rice-growing areas throughout the country to produce 265,852 tons, the blue WF is dominant and green WF is almost non-existent because rice in Iraq grows during the hot and dry summer. Some provinces like Muthanna and Misan produce little and have a high WF so, rice can be replaced with crops like vegetables that provide more economic benefit and need less water, and the production should be concentrated in low WF provinces such as Qadisiya and Najaf.