Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla 90112, Thailand.
Life Cycle Strategies Pty Ltd, Melbourne, VIC 3065, Australia.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Apr 1;763:143000. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143000. Epub 2020 Oct 23.
Water scarcity problems are a national agenda that must be prioritized. Thailand is an agricultural country with agriculture consuming a large amount of water. Sustainable water management for the agricultural sector is urgently needed. This study assessed the impacts of water consumption by agricultural products using a water scarcity footprint (WSF) assessment. This study presents the use of the growing season available water remaining characterization factors (AWARE CFs) of specific crops, based on growth months of that crop, instead of the annual AWARE CFs of agricultural products to assess the value of this approach for an appropriate assessment of water resource and the planning of crop production priorities. The original marginal AWARE CF was considered for determining the growing season AWARE CFs of major rice, second rice, sugarcane, maize, and cassava in 25 Thai watersheds. The growing season AWARE CFs of the food crops were used to determine their WSFs for the 25 Thai watersheds. The growing season AWARE CFs of major rice, second rice, sugarcane, maize, and cassava for Thailand were 1.74, 11.5, 6.01, 3.28, and 7.96 m world-eq. per m consumed, respectively. There were statistical differences between the means of annual AWARE CFs and growing season AWARE CFs for all Thai food crops in almost all watersheds. The WSFs using growing season AWARE CFs of major rice, second rice, sugarcane, maize, and cassava were 0.05-3.66, 1.10-193, 0.51-7.99, 1.09-8.28, and 1.65-30.3 m world-eq. per kilogram, respectively. This work identified suitable watersheds for growing food crops and compiled them as databases for the use of zoning food crop cultivation by the Thai government. Regarding WSF values, the least suitable watershed for growing major rice, second rice, sugarcane, and cassava was the Petchaburi watershed. The least suitable watershed for growing maize was the Chao Phraya watershed.
水资源短缺问题是一个必须优先考虑的国家议程。泰国是一个农业国，农业用水量很大。迫切需要对农业部门进行可持续的水资源管理。本研究使用水资源稀缺足迹（WSF）评估评估了农产品的耗水量。本研究提出了使用特定作物的生长季节可用水剩余特征因子（AWARE CFs），基于该作物的生长月份，而不是农产品的年度 AWARE CFs，来评估这种方法在适当评估水资源和规划作物生产优先级方面的价值。原始边际 AWARE CF 用于确定泰国 25 个流域主要水稻、第二季水稻、甘蔗、玉米和木薯的生长季节 AWARE CF。这些粮食作物的生长季节 AWARE CF 用于确定它们在 25 个泰国流域的 WSF。泰国主要水稻、第二季水稻、甘蔗、玉米和木薯的生长季节 AWARE CF 分别为 1.74、11.5、6.01、3.28 和 7.96 m 世界等效/m 消耗。在几乎所有流域，所有泰国粮食作物的年度 AWARE CF 和生长季节 AWARE CF 的平均值之间都存在统计学差异。使用主要水稻、第二季水稻、甘蔗、玉米和木薯的生长季节 AWARE CF 的 WSF 分别为 0.05-3.66、1.10-193、0.51-7.99、1.09-8.28 和 1.65-30.3 m 世界等效/kg。这项工作确定了适合种植粮食作物的适宜流域，并将其汇编成数据库，供泰国政府用于分区种植粮食作物。关于 WSF 值，最不适合种植主要水稻、第二季水稻、甘蔗和木薯的流域是碧差汶府流域。最不适合种植玉米的流域是昭披耶河。
