Water Management in Agriculture

Water Management in Agriculture

Consequences of Water Reduction in Agricultural Sector and its adaptation capacity through Intensification

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Seyedreza Amiri 1
Seyedmajid Alimagham 2
Afshin Soltani 2
Shahrzad Karimi 3
1 Department of Production Engineering and Plant Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Saravan, Iran
2 Faculty of Plant Production, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Iran
3 Faculty of Plant Production, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Ira
Abstract
Iran, due to its arid and semi-arid climate, has always faced the problem of water scarcity. In recent decades, over-harvesting of water resources for agriculture has led to environmental consequences in the country. To reduce environmental damage, the amount of water withdrawal from resources should be reduced. Reducing water consumption in the agricultural sector could result in consequences such as reducing self-sufficiency in production, increasing food import costs, and unemployment of farmers due to abandoning land (unirrigable land due to lack of water). In this study, the SEA system was used to examine and quantify the consequences of reducing water allocation to agricultural and how to address this phenomenon through intensification (that is, increasing the irrigation efficiency and eliminating the yield gap). The results of this study showed that if agricultural water use were reduced from 86 to 39 billion cubic meters (as a safe threshold to prevent negative effects on the environment) if agricultural production management remained unchanged, the amount of irrigated production would decrease from 98.53 to 43.75 million tons, the self-sufficiency coefficient for plant production would decrease from 85% to 42%, and the area of irrigated land would shrink from 8.4 to 3.7 million hectares. Also, 2.16 million jobs would be lost due to farmers abandoning their lands. However, if production intensification is implemented by 2050, with irrigation efficiency reaches 60% and the yield of crops increases to 80% of their potential yields, and with the water withdrawal of 39 billion cubic meters, it would be possible to produce roughly the same amount of plant products in the country as currently (88.52 million tons of irrigated crops with 39 billion cubic meters of harvested water compared to current 98.53 million tons with 86 billion cubic meters of harvested water; considering the bridging yield gap under rainfed condition, the total plant production will be 109.59 compared to current 109.21 million tons) and the value of the self-sufficiency coefficient will not change despite the significant reduction in water withdrawal compared to the current conditions. Therefore, intensification is a very important tool for adapting to water scarcity, through which production declines due to reduced water allocation to agriculture can be prevented.
Keywords
Abandoned land
Climate change
Import cost of agricultural products
Unemployment

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