Using water footprint concept in sustainable water management studies

In Turkey, 44 km3 of the amount of exploitable water resources which is 112 km3, is consumed by agriculture, industry and domestic sectors. The agricultural sector in Turkey is the largest consumer of water, which decreases in parallel with the climate change. Agricultural irrigation is vital to meet the increasing food demand of growing population and it should be managed in a sustainable way. In this study, the water consumption of agricultural sector in Turkey, accounting for nearly 74 % of total water consumption, has been evaluated using water footprint concept. Irrigation water requirements of 10 agricultural products, accounting for nearly 65 % of total agricultural production of Turkey, have been compared with World, Turkey and Antalya. According to the evaluation, irrigation water requirements of 6 agricultural products in Turkey are higher than world average. The unit water footprint for 20 agricultural products, accounting for 91% of total agricultural production of Antalya, has been compared with unit water footprints of World and Turkey. Irrigation water requirement for most of those selected agricultural products in Antalya have been determined higher than average agricultural irrigation requirements of Turkey. In addition to the agricultural sector, water consumption of tourism sector, which is equally important for Antalya, has also been evaluated using water footprint concept. Water consumption of tourism facilities selected in Antalya has been directly and indirectly evaluated in order to determine the water consumption of the tourism sector. Water footprints based on food, beverage and electricity consumption were calculated to determine indirect water consumption. Average water footprint was calculated considering direct and indirect water consumption on annual basis in a selected 5 star hotel and average water footprint was found as 11900 l/overnight. This value is relatively high comparing to values calculated in other international studies.