Water Footprint of main crops in Austria / Wasser-Fußabdruck wichtiger Nutzpflanzen in Österreich

Water is a key resource for human activities and a critical trigger for the welfare of the whole society. The agricultural sector makes up the main share in global freshwater consumption and is therefore responsible for a large part of the water scarcity in many drought prone regions. As an indicator that relates human consumption to global water resources, the “Water Footprint” (WF) concept can be used, where in case of crop production the total consumed water of crop fields for the crop growing seasons is related to the harvested dry matter crop yield (such as grains). In our study, we simulated the green and primary blue WF of selected main crops for Austrian conditions. Different irrigation scheduling scenarios, demonstrated for a main agricultural production area and various crops in Austria with significant irrigation acreage, were studied. The impact of climate and soil conditions on the green crop WFs of reference crops over the whole territory of Austria were simulated in a second step. Sunflower, winter wheat and grain maize showed the highest WF in the semi-arid study regions, especially on soils with low water capacity. In more humid regions, low temperatures were the main limiting factor on the crop yield potential and frequently led to higher WFs due to lower yields.