ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Agron.
Sec. Field Water Management
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fagro.2025.1595665
This article is part of the Research TopicAgronomy and Sustainable Development Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and ProductionView all articles
The water footprints of a cropping system in the Chirakchi Watershed, Uzbekistan
Provisionally accepted
- 1International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Tunisia, Tunisia
- 2International Water Management Institute (Egypt), Giza, Beni Suef, Egypt
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The water footprint of crops (WFP) is crucial to understand how efficiently water is used in a farming system. This study evaluated the green and blue water footprints of selected crops in the Chirakchi Watershed, located in southern Uzbekistan. The study evaluates the sustainability of water use in the region agricultural practices by integrating two biophysical simulation models, SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) and APEX (Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender), to assess water consumption patterns of cotton, wheat, carrot, and potato between 2000 and 2023. The result of the study indicated a significant variation in water use among the selected crops, with cotton water use being the highest among the selected crops. The study also highlights the region growing dependence on irrigation (blue water) due to declining rainfall patterns (green water), underscoring the challenges of sustainable water management practice in the region, which relies heavily on irrigation. This trend is alarming given the region's arid climate and increasing water scarcity, combined with climate change, which threatens the long-term sustainability of agricultural practices. This study offers valuable insights into improving water productivity in the Uzbekistan agricultural sector.
Keywords: Water productivity, water footprint, Green water, Blue water, APEX model
Received: 18 Mar 2025; Accepted: 22 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Worqlul, Akramkhanov and Gafurov. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Abeyou Worqlul, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Tunisia, Tunisia
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