Water Debt Indicator Reveals Where Agricultural Water Use Exceeds Sustainable Levels. Issue 3 (28th March 2019)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Water Debt Indicator Reveals Where Agricultural Water Use Exceeds Sustainable Levels. Issue 3 (28th March 2019)
- Main Title:
- Water Debt Indicator Reveals Where Agricultural Water Use Exceeds Sustainable Levels
- Authors:
- Tuninetti, Marta
Tamea, Stefania
Dalin, Carole - Abstract:
- Abstract: Agriculture overexploits water resources in many regions, as water stress metrics highlight. Tracing back the causes of water overuses and separately accounting for soil water, surface water and groundwater resources is an open challenge to monitor the sustainability of agricultural water use. We introduce the "water debt repayment time" indicator, measuring the time required to replenish water resources used for annual crop production. This indicator disentangles source‐ and crop‐specific water overuses at a high spatial resolution. Globally, we find that wheat and rice production critically overuses groundwater resources and cotton production overuses both surface water and groundwater. Locally, unsustainable production is found over the Sabarmati Basin and in the Chao Phraya Basin, where the repayment time exceeds 5 years in many cultivated areas. Critical overuses are also found over the High Plain and Indo‐Gangetic Plains, where the repayment times reach 50 years. Unsustainable irrigation is often a consequence of growing crops during local dry seasons. Key Points: The water debt evaluates the time required for the hydrological cycle to renew the water used for annual crop production The water debt complements the water footprint indicator in sustainability assessments The water debt unpacks the spectrum of crop responsibilities behind unsustainable freshwater use
- Is Part Of:
- Water resources research. Volume 55:Issue 3(2019)
- Journal:
- Water resources research
- Issue:
- Volume 55:Issue 3(2019)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 55, Issue 3 (2019)
- Year:
- 2019
- Volume:
- 55
- Issue:
- 3
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2019-0055-0003-0000
- Page Start:
- 2464
- Page End:
- 2477
- Publication Date:
- 2019-03-28
- Subjects:
- sustainability -- water footprint -- water depletion -- food production -- groundwater -- irrigation demand
Hydrology -- Periodicals
333.91 - Journal URLs:
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1944-7973 ↗
http://www.agu.org/pubs/current/wr/ ↗
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1029/2018WR023146 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0043-1397
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 9275.150000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 16950.xml