Determining the water footprint of sunfower in Turkey and creating digital maps for sustainable agricultural water management

Abstract

With the rapid population growth, global warming and increasing urbanization in recent years, existing water resources are rapidly depleted and polluted. As a result of uncon scious consumption and pollution of water resources, studies on the sustainable manage ment of water have gained momentum. In recent years, the concept of water footprint has attracted attention in terms of the sustainability of water resources. The concept of water footprint refers to the amount of water required throughout the production of any service or product. In this study, the green, blue and total water footprint sizes of the sunfower in Turkey in 2017–2021 were determined and calculated as 0.803 billion m3 , 2.656 billion m3 and 3.460 billion m3 , respectively. The region with the highest sunfower production and the largest sunfower water footprint was determined as the Marmara-Thrace region, and the province as Tekirdağ. The main reason for the high water footprint of the sunfower in Tekirdağ is the highest sunfower production in the province. For efcient and sustainable use of water, the blue water footprint should be low and the green water footprint high. Thus, when Turkey is evaluated, it has been determined that the highest green water foot print for sunfower is in the Black Sea region. Therefore, it seems possible for Turkey to reduce the blue water footprint of sunfowers by focusing on sunfower production in the Black Sea region.