Water Footprint Assessment of Rainfed Crops with Critical Irrigation under Different Climate Change Scenarios in SAT Regions

Semi-Arid Tropical (SAT) regions are influenced by climate change impacts affecting the rainfed crops in their productivity and production. Water Footprint (WF) assessment for rainfed crops on watershed scale is critical for water resource planning, development, efficient crop planning, and, better water use efficiency. A semi-arid tropical watershed was selected in lower Krishna river basin having a 4700 ha area in Telangana, India. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to estimate the water balance components of watershed like runoff, potential evapotranspiration, percolation, and effective rainfall for base period (1994 to 2013) and different climate change scenarios of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 for the time periods of 2020, 2050 and 2080. Green and blue WF of rainfed crops viz., maize, sorghum, groundnut, redgram and cotton were performed by considering rainfed, and two critical irrigations (CI) of 30 mm and 50 mm. It indicated that the effective rainfall (ER) is less than crop evapo-transpiration (ET) during crop growing period under different RCPs, time periods, and base period. The green WF under rainfed condition over different RCPs and time periods had decreasing trend for all crops. The study suggested that in the rainfed agro-ecosystems, the blue WF can significantly reduce the total WF by enhancing the productivity through critical irrigation management using on farm water resources developed through rainwater harvesting structures. The maximum significant reduction in WF over the base period was observed 13-16% under rainfed, 30-32% with 30 mm CI and 40-42% with 50 mm CI by 2080. Development of crop varieties particularly in oilseeds and pulses which have less WF and higher yields for unit of water consumed could be a solution for improving overall WF in the watersheds of SAT regions.

Automated summary

Climate change impacts rainfed crops in semi-arid tropical regions. Water footprint (WF) assessment is critical for water resource planning. The study showed that under different climate change scenarios, the green WF of rainfed crops decreased, and critical irrigation management can significantly reduce the total WF.