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BACKGROUND: Drought affects the characteristics of water use during crop production and so quantitatively evaluating the impacts is important. However, it remains unclear how crop water use responds to drought. To address this gap, water footprint (WF) and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) were calculated by remote sensing approaches to assess the effects of drought on crop water use. Rainfed maize is the most important crop in Jilin Province, and its growth and water use are more susceptible to drought. The present study explored not only the impact of growing season drought on the maize WF values in Jilin Province, but also the response of WF values to drought at different time scales. RESULTS: Spatially, 72.94% of the WFblue pixels showed a non‐significant increase, and the WFgreen in 68% pixels decreased significantly, being mainly concentrated in the middle region. Furthermore, the pixels affected by monthly time scale drought were mainly in the middle region, whereas the pixels affected by annual time scale drought were mainly in the western region. CONCLUSION: Drought not only affected on the source and structure of agricultural water consumption, but also had different effects on WF values at different time scale. These effects had obvious spatial differences. The present study systematically explored the effects of drought on the WF values for rainfed maize in different climate regions and a consideration of these effects could provide valuable information on rainfed maize growth and the agricultural water use response to a changing climate. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Rice is a special crop, and its production differs from that of other crops because it requires a thin layer of water coverage for a long period. The calculation of the water footprint of rice production should differ from that of other crops owing to the rice growing process. This study improved the calculation of blue and grey water footprints of rice production and analyzed the variations in the water footprints for rice production under different rainfall years in Jilin Province. RESULTS: In the drought year, the green water footprint was the lowest and the blue water footprint was the highest among the three years, while in the humid year, the green water footprint was the highest and the blue water footprint was not the lowest. The areas with higher water footprints were found in the east and west regions of Jilin Province, while the areas with lower water footprints were found in the middle east and middle regions of Jilin Province. CONCLUSION: Blue water was the primary water resource for rice production, although more precipitation provided the highest green water in the humid year; also, the spatial distributions of water footprints were not the same under different rainfall years. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]