An Investigation of Physical and Economic Productivity of Agricultural Water: A Case Study of Fars Province, Iran

In a broad sense, water productivity (WP) is the net return for a unit of water used. The aim behind improving water productivity is providing more food, income, better livelihoods and ecosystem services with less water. The present study measures the physical and economic water productivity for selected crops in nine cities of Fars province. It was also tried to investigate the comparative advantage of each city with regard to the production of some crops. The results showed that the southern areas of Fars province have low physical and economic water productivity due to bad climate conditions. Thus, increasing productivity is imperative in these areas. The northern and western areas of Fars province have comparative advantage in the production of cereal and grains. Finally, priority of most areas is devoted to the cultivation of vegetables due to the highest yield value and physical water productivity.