Assessment of Water, Food, and Energy Productivity Indices Using the WA+ Water Accounting Framework and a Nexus Approach

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, University of Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jwim.2023.357988.1069

Abstract

With the aim of increasing water, food and energy productivity, this study was carried out in two stages to develop and validate a tool for evaluating agricultural management strategies in relation to the link between water, food and energy security (NEXUS). In the first part, using the WA+ water accounting framework, with the aim of analyzing the parameters of hydro climatology, the four worksheets of basic resources, evaporation and transpiration, harvesting of water resources and productivity of the Plasjan watershed were calculated and management scenarios were determined to increase productivity, and in the second part, management scenarios with The NEXUS approach were evaluated and prioritized. The results of WA+ showed that in the Plasjan basin, the high volume of evaporation and transpiration was useless. In the second part of this research, among the 4 main scenarios (48 sub-scenarios) introduced to improve productivity, the scenarios of cultivar change and irrigation treatment, change of cultivated area and rainfed cultivation with supplementary irrigation had a positive effect on water, food and energy productivity index. After prioritizing the influential sub-scenarios with the TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making model, the sub-scenario of wheat variety 6 with full irrigation treatment had the most positive effect on water, food and energy productivity and was identified as an indicator scenario for evaluating productivity in agricultural management.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Water and Irrigation Management
Volume 13, Issue 3
October 2023
Pages 715-733

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