Estimation of the water footprint for the strategic crops in Iraq: wheat and barley as a case study

Abstract

The concept of water footprint provide important information for water resource management, especially in water-scarce countries that depend on irrigation to meet their nutritional requirements. In this study, the water footprint of wheat and barley were estimated during the years 2019 and 2020 in 15 governorates of Iraq using the method (Ewaid et al., 2019) and models CROPWAT8.0 and CLIMWAT2.

The results showed that the average water footprint of the wheat crop was about (908 m³/ton) and (747 m³/ton) for the two years, respectively. While the average water footprint of the barley crop was about (2849 m ³ / ton) and (4,198 m ³ / ton) for the two year, respectively. The maximum value was in Maysan (3118.5 m ³ / ton) and Muthanna (1620.2 m ³ / ton) during two years. While the minimum value was in Salah al-Din (592 m ³ / ton) and Kirkuk (495 m ³ / ton) during two years. The water footprint of the barley crop was close in all Iraqi governorates at a rate of (3524 m³ /ton) except for Basra was high compared to the rest of the governorates due to the lack in Productivity. Increasing productivity per unit area can reduce the water footprint, so cultivation of rain fed area can be achieve this goal by reduces the need for production from irrigated areas and consequently reducing the use of blue water footprint and achieving greater economic benefit.