Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Fariborz Abbasi ¹
• M. Akbari ²
• Abolfazl Nasseri ³
• Nader Abbassi ⁴
• J. Baghani ²
• M. Joleini ²
• Mohammad Ali Shahrokhnia ⁵
• Mohammad Mehdi Nakhjavanimoghaddam ⁶
• Saloome Sepehri Sadeghian ⁷
• M. Moayeri ²
• A.R. Hassanoghli ²
• Abolghasem Haghayeghi ⁸
• Ali Ghadami Firouzabadi ⁹
• syeed Hassan mousavifazl ¹⁰
• M.R. Yazdani ¹¹

¹ Agricultural Engineering Research Institute, AERI

² Agricultural Engineering Research Institute

³ Agricultural Engineering Research Institue, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Karaj, Iran

⁴ Professor, AERI

⁵ Associate Professor, Agricultural Engineering Research Department, Fars Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization(AREEO), Shiraz, Iran.

⁶ Assistant Professor and Professor of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering Department, Agricultural Engineering Research Institute (AERI), Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Karaj, Iran

⁷ Agricultural Engineering Research Institute (AERI)

⁸ Member of scientefic board, Agriculture Research Center of Khorasan Razavi

⁹ Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Engineering Research, Hamedan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, Hamedan, Iran

¹⁰ Assistant Professor, Agricultural Engineering Research Department, Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center Semnan province (Shahrood), AREEO, Shahrood, Iran.

¹¹ Rice Research Institute

Abstract

Extended Abstract

In terms of water consumption in different sectors, in Iran as in other countries, a significant part of surface and groundwater resources is used in agricultural sector. For the amount of water consumed in Iran's agricultural sector, different numbers have been reported in various sources. In the past three decades, water consumption in agricultural sector in various sources and methods has been reported between 44 and 86 billion cubic meters (Movaheddanesh, 1994; Ghodratnema, 1998; Mohammad-Vali-Samani, 2005; Nasseri et al., 2017; 2018). The physical water productivity is also one of the important indicators of irrigation management, which is determined by using the amount of product produced per unit of applied irrigation water. Abbasi et al. (2017) estimated and analyzed water productivity values in Iran for different years. They estimated the values of water productivity varying from 0.94 to 1.29 kg/m3 and average being 1.07 kg/m3. Abbasi et al. (2019) also showed that water productivity index in Iran had an upward trend with a slope of 0.045 kg per year. It varied from 1.0 kg/m3 in 2008 to about 1.45 kg/m3 in 2017. Past researches regarding the estimation of water consumption in agricultural sector have been reported with estimation methods such as water balance method, which is not accurate and is associated with errors. On the other hand, the figures presented for the amount of water consumed in agricultural sector are very different and there are doubts about their accuracy. Despite the importance of the issue, accurate information on the amount of irrigation water for agricultural crops in different regions of Iran is not available and this issue has always been one of the main concerns of the water industry managers and planners. Therefore, carrying out a research work that lead to more accurate numbers about the amount of applied irrigation water for different crops, can be of great help to the decision-making of officials related to water and agriculture. Therefore, the main goal of this article is a comprehensive evaluation of water management indicators in agricultural sector (including the water productivity and applied irrigation water for different crops).

Methodology

Field measurements including applied irrigation water and crop yield were carried out for at least one cropping season in the production hubs of each crop. The studied crops include 12 agricultural crops (wheat, rice, barley, fodder corn, alfalfa, sugar beet, sugar cane, beans, sunflower, cotton, rapeseed, soybean), 17 garden crops (saffron, apple, olive, orange, tangerine, peach, nectarine, plum, lemon, fig, grape, date, pomegranate, walnut, almond, pistachio, cherry) and 6 vegetable and summer crops (tomato, watermelon, potato, cucumber, melon, onion). These crops covered more than 85% of the cultivated area and irrigated lands in different provinces. For each crop, applied irrigation water was measured in a crop season and the yield for one year or the average of two years, but for garden plants, due to climate changes and frost that affect the yield, the average yield of 1-3 years was determined and used in the analysis. Physical water productivity of irrigation water from the ratio of crop yield to applied irrigation water and water productivity from the ratio of crop yield to water (total volume of irrigation water and effective precipitation) and gross income per unit of applied irrigation water was calculated from the product of crop yield in the sales price divided by the applied irrigation water. In this research, the cluster analysis model was used to determine the homogeneous crops.

Results and Discussion

The results showed that applied irrigation water for different crops varies from 3984 for rapeseed to 32500 cubic meters per hectare for sugarcane. So that the weighted average applied irrigation water of 35 studied crops was determined to be 8032 cubic meters per hectare.

This index was 9162, 7669 and 7247 cubic meters per hectare, respectively, for garden, agricultural, vegetable and summer crops. Also, the total applied water used for the 35 studied crops was estimated at 61.7 billion cubic meters and the total irrigation water for other crops that were not evaluated in this research was estimated at 9.4 billion cubic meters. The total water used in irrigated crops is estimated at 71.1 billion cubic meters, which is about 70% of the total renewable water in Iran. The weighted average of irrigation water productivity and water productivity of the studied crops was determined as 1.9 and 1.5 kg/m3, respectively. Saffron and pistachio provided the highest gross income per unit of irrigation water and sugarcane, soybean, barley, fodder corn, wheat and alfalfa had the lowest values.

Conclusions

The results of this research provide valuable information for managers and decision makers in different provinces of Iran.

Keywords

• Applied irrigation water
• physical productivity
• cluster analysis
• gross income

Main Subjects

• Water Resources and Consumption