Water Resources Evaluation in Arid Areas Based on Agricultural Water Footprint—A Case Study on the Edge of the Taklimakan Desert

作者：Lingyun Zhang, Yang Yu, Ireneusz Malik, Małgorzata Wistuba, Lingxiao Sun, Meiling Yang, Qian Wang, Ruide Yu · 发表于：Atmosphere · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.3390/atmos14010067 · 被引用次数：22 · 研究领域：Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies、Environmental Impact and Sustainability、Water resources management and optimization

Water scarcity is an important factor limiting agricultural development in arid areas. Clarifying and evaluating the current situation of water resources in arid regions is helpful for decision-makers in the rational use of water resources. This study takes a typical arid region located at the edge of Taklamakan Desert-Hotan region as the study area. The water footprint (WF) of the Hotan region was calculated based on 20 years of data information from 2000–2019. An evaluation system was established using four aspects of the WF: structural indicators, efficiency indicators, ecological safety indicators, and sustainability indicators. The results show that the WF of the study area is mainly dominated by blue water consumption, with a proportion of 65.74%. The WF of crop production is larger than that of livestock production. The produced WF of grain crops is the highest of all products with a share of 44.21%. The increase in the local agricultural WF reached 53.18% from 2000 to 2019, but it was still lower than the amount of water available for agriculture. The evaluation results indicated that the region’s WF import dependency is lower than the global level, with an annual average self-sufficiency rate of 91.13% and an increase of 878.95% in the WF economic efficiency index. The agricultural WF produced in Hotan is exported in the form of trade, but the quantitative contribution is small and does little to relieve water stress in other regions. The agricultural water consumpti...