WATER FOOTPRINT ASSESSMENT FOR AGRICULTURE AND ITS USE IN WATER RESOURCE PLANNING

Abstract

Water footprint and virtual water concept have been made a new research agenda to address the regional water scarcity as well as food security. Although there is much less awareness that the temporal and spatial distribution of freshwater across the globe is greatly affected by production chains and global exchange. This study applies the concept of water footprint analysis to compute the water demands of the process of growing two principle crops (rice and maize) in the large inter basin water transfer links, Godavari - Krishna river basin, proposed by the Government of India and establish the water resource planning by the use of available lands and type of crops. The overall green, blue and grey water footprint of rice for the year 2001-2006 within Godavari basin was found to be 2300 m31ha, 126 m31ha and 361 m3lha respectively. Similarly for Krishna river basin it was found to be 935 m3/ha, 1006 m3/ha and 207 m3/ha respectively. The findings shows that in spite of transferring a huge amount of water from surplus basin (Godavari river) to deficit basin (Krishna river), a part of water could be used to irrigate the cultivable waste lands within surplus basin and the production of more water endowment crops could be traded to the deficit basins. This could help in increasing the food production within the basins and the proper utilization of land and thus help in food security. The water footprint of rice and maize from planting to harvest, only represents one snapshots of the entire picture of consumptive water use. As this is only an application of footprint accounting, additional research that incorporates the production process that includes transportation processing and export would create a more complete assessment of water resources allocated for agriculture