Emergy ecological footprint analysis of Yaghooti grape production in the Sistan region of Iran

The Yaghooti grape is the most important garden product in Sistan County, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran, and plays a significant role in the region's economy and way of life. This novel study employs the emergy ecological footprint method to investigate the sustainability of the Yaghooti grape production system. Towards this end, this study employs data collected in 2019 from grape production systems in five cities located in Iran's Sistan region, including Zabol, Zahak, Hamoun, Hirmand, and Nimroz Counties. Using the emergy environ-mental burden index, this study attempts for the first time to quantify the nonrenewable environmental resources that are lost during the production process. Emergy carrying capacity was calculated to be 3.93E+08 Gha for all grape fields in this study. The emergy ecological footprint in this study was 1.125E+08 Gha. The grape pro-duction system in this region has an emergy ecological burden of 0.401 and an emergy ecological footprint intensity of 0.286. As a result of its prominent role in environmental protection, the production system maintains an ecological surplus, does not face significant ecological pressure, and is thus ecologically secure. Despite these positive effects of the production system, 1.35E+09 ha of fertile land is unavailable annually in the Sistan region due to grape production.

Automated summary

This study investigates the sustainability of the Yaghooti grape production system in Sistan County, Iran, using the emergy ecological footprint method. The production system plays a significant role in the local economy and way of life. Although it has positive effects on environmental protection, grape production in the Sistan region results in the unavailability of 1.35 billion hectares of fertile land annually.