Computing crops water footprint for economic and agronomic sustainability: experiences from Europe and Israel

The sustainable management of water resources cannot be kept separated from an afterthought of agricultural development, which is well known coming into play in the use of water. The adoption of the water footprint (WF) demonstrated to be very useful in the communication of the water value, giving direct and easy-to-understand information to both institutional actors and consumers. But yet, there are many aspects that are still little considered, as that of estimating an indicator of sustainability able to integrate economic, environmental and social aspects. The aim of this study was to investigate environmental and economic aspects related to selected irrigated crops, through the use of WF. Information on the economic and environmental value of water, in fact, can assist decision making process related to the planning and management of agricultural activities. In particular, two pilot areas were considered: Israel (Arava area) and Italy (Campania Region), with different climates, agricultural, environment and economic systems. A database of daily meteorological data was created from weather local stations. In Italy 15 weather stations managed by Agrometeorological Service of Campania Region have been considered; In Israel the dataset came from Southern Arava Center meteorological station. For both areas, reference evapotranspiration was estimated using the FAO Software Et0 calculator. In each country three irrigated crops were considered: silage maize, tomato and tobacco In Italy; and date, potato and tomato in Israel. The crop growth periods and the different crop coefficients (Kc) were considered and daily crop evapotranspiration was then calculated. Based on collected data, beside crop WF, other two indicators were defined and estimated: WF of the gross margin, and of WF of job. The first describes the economic efficiency of irrigation in terms of water footprint, while the second shows the importance of an efficient use of water for irrigation through labour costs. The proposed methodology, based on the water footprint, allowed to assess and compare different agricultural productions and farming systems in terms of environmental, economic and social outcomes for a given volume of water