Assessment of water footprint under wheat cultivation in Purvanchal Uttar Pradesh, Northern India

The world, at present, is witnessing a serious scarcity of fresh water resource whereas, sub-optimum utilization and mismanagement of water resources are equally contributing towards worsening of the problem. Currently, access to fresh water resources has become a daunting challenge for meeting the increased demand of water. The criticality level has intensified by several-folds due to flawed industrial demand and uncontrolled population growth, which is not only contributed to the pollution of much needed water resource but also, equally, threatened human health. Therefore, the deliberation of water managers, policy makers, and academicians were shifted from the supply management to demand management after 2000's United Nations ministerial declaration. In the present study, an attempt has been made to fill research gap regarding accounting of water footprint (WFP) at district level in Purvanchal, Uttar Pradesh (U. P.). It offers a comprehensive understanding of WFP including blue, green and grey components. The paper also contributes to extension of calculating sub-components of grey WFP, which has not been reported anywhere in the literature so far. Purvanchal, one of the political regions of U. P. state, was considered for spatial assessment of WFPs in wheat cultivation at field of its 17 districts. The data for this study was collected from statistical abstract-U. P., state agricultural directorate, national bureau of soil survey and land use planning (NBSS & LUP), published reports and the field survey. The WFP for each component was estimated by a set of frameworks proposed by Chapagain and Hoekstra et al. 2003 and, further elaborated by Aldaya and Llamas et al. 2008. The results show that the blue WFP has highest share, which contributes about 92% to WFP, i.e., it presents an average of 1332 cubic meter per ton in wheat cultivation. In contrast, the average grey and green WFPs have been estimated at 26 and 97 cubic meters per ton, respectively, of WFP. However, spatial variability was also been reported from the selected districts. Therefore, a rational approach is being recommended to ensure sustainability and efficiency in wheat cultivation.