Browsing by Author "Farzam, Neda"

This study provides the green (the share of rain water in crop production) and blue (the share of surface and groundwater in crop production) water footprint (WF) of four annual crops in Finland and five annual crops in Iran for the growing period 2007?2012. It aims to present more recent water footprint accounting on annual crops in this study. Due to the large scale water footprint accounting (country level), the calculation for grey water footprint was omitted from this study. The green and blue water footprints of barley, maize, oilseed rape, soybeans and wheat for Iran and barley, oats, oilseed rape, and wheat for Finland were calculated over the annual growing period 2007 to 2012. Crops were selected upon the availability of crop production in each country. WF values were estimated based on crop water use (CWU) and crop yield, where CWU was estimated upon the accumulative ET over the growing season of the crops. For daily evapotranspiration values AQUACROP model was used. For running the AQUACROP model, different parameters were needed such as climatic parameters (including minimum and maximum temperature, rainfall and potential evapotranspiration), soil type, land management, irrigation practice, groundwater and initial condition for sowing, sowing and harvesting dates. This data were mined from databases. Due to the fact that crop production in Finland is rain-fed, only green WF of the selected crops were calculated for Finland. In Finland oilseed rape had the highest average green water footprint per ton of production, which was 2471 m^3 t¯¹yr¯^1 and it was followed by oats (1036 m^3 t¯¹yr¯^1), wheat (944? m?^3 t¯¹yr¯^1), and barley (838? m?^3 t¯¹yr¯^1). Considering the annual crop production, the average total green water footprint of selected crops was 3669 Mm^3 yr¯^1 in Finland. Water saving through crop trade was estimated -294 Mm^3 yr¯^1. The negative saving water amount showed the virtual water loss through crop trade of selected crops in Finland. The highest export crop in Finland was oats during 2007?2012. In Iran the major share of annual crop production comes from irrigated crop lands and that shows the importance of blue water footprint accounting beside green water footprint. The sum of green and blue water footprints of the growing crops in Iran was considered as water footprint of the crops. Water footprint per ton of crops in Iran increased from maize (696 m^3 t¯¹yr¯^1), wheat (1235 m^3 t¯¹yr¯^1), barley (1350 m^3 t¯¹yr¯^1), soybeans (2210 m^3 t¯¹yr¯^1) to oilseed rape (3503 m^3 t¯¹yr¯^1). Total average water footprint of the selected crops in Iran considering their production in the country was estimated 22816? Mm?^3 yr¯^1. Regarding the crop trade balances in Iran, the country saved 8902? Mm?^3 yr¯^1 water by importing the crops. Wheat was the major import crop during 2007?2012. WF can be a strong tool for assessing the consumptive water use of the agricultural systems in place and time according to different agricultural and water managements. It can bring a ground for comparing the production sites for certain crops or products considering the lower WF of the produced items. This study aimed at producing recent calculations of water footprint of crops in Finland and Iran, using local data.