Search

Copyright of Irrigation & Drainage is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Water, food, energy are inextricably connected. As the largest user of water agriculture accounts for about 70% of the total water withdrawals globally. Food production and supply also consume about 30% of total global energy. Given the water-food-energy interconnections, integrated planning, policy and management are required for the food production system where the nexus approach can be applied. The current study presents a method for applying the water-food-energy nexus approach to optimize water and energy use for food crop production. A water-food-energy nexus index was used as an objective function, and its derivation was explained. A linear optimization approach is used to maximize the water-food-energy nexus index. This leads to a multi-objective optimization approach which proposes an optimal cropping pattern to save water and energy and increase the agricultural net return. A case study from Egypt was applied to illustrate the benefits of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intended for comprehensive assessment of water usage in agricultural for food production and to address its future, it is essential to scrutinize the dynamic behavior of crop production and its water footprint and virtual water trade. Through the current research a System Dynamic model that can be applied to estimate crop production, water footprint, and virtual water nexus was developed. The system could be applied to explore how water footprint of crop production and consumption change under proposed planned scenarios which differ from each other in terms of main drivers of change. The drivers of change include population, per capita crop consumption, crop trade patterns, crop yield, and climate change impact. The system is developed to be applied at the country level. A case study from Egypt was analyzed applying the developed system. Where, water footprint of wheat production (green, blue, and grey water), consumption (internal, import and export), and its virtual water balance for years 2010 to 2050 were analyzed under proposed planned scenarios. These proposed planned scenarios were varying in wheat trade pattern strategies and impact of climate change on wheat water consumption and its yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]