Evaluation of the usability of remote sensing techniques for calculation of water footprint in agricultural production

Water is of great importance for the continuity of the life of all living things. Industrialization and the rapid increase in the human population increase the pressure on water resources and cause pollution of water resources. The pressure on water resources has brought the need for more efficient use of resources into view and led to many studies on sustainable water management. One of the most recent and most effective studies on sustainable water management is Water Footprint (WF). The expression of water footprint (WF) was put forward by Hoekstra in the early 2000s and getting widespread, it has become an important concept today. WF is the measure of the total amount of water used directly and indirectly within the production and consumption processes of products and services. The concept of water footprint is classified as blue, green and grey water footprint depending on the type of water used. The blue water footprint indicates the total amount of surface and groundwater resources, the green water footprint represents the total amount of water from precipitation, and the grey water footprint indicates the amount of fresh water used to eliminate or dilute the pollution load in the polluted water resources. While studies have been carried out on the issue of WF calculation for many years, the complex calculations in the studies make the calculations difficult. The aim of this study is to present an innovative method by using remote sensing data and geographic information systems (GIS) technologies in order to facilitate the calculations in WF studies. The analyzes carried out in the thesis study were made across Turkey in such a way to cover the 12 months of the year 2018. Within the scope of the thesis, rainfall, evapotranspiration and surface moisture data were used to determine the water footprint. As a result of the thesis study, total evaluation, regional evaluation and by using CORINE data vegetative evaluation were carried out. As a result of the calculations made, it has been determined that the total water footprint is 113.7 billion m³, the blue water footprint is 68.6 billion m³ / year and the green water footprint is 45.1 billion m³ / year. It is thought that the thesis study will be a pioneering study on sustainable water management in our country and will serve as a guide for future studies in water footprint calculations.