Determining the Optimal Water Use Efficiency in Wheat Production Sustainability

Environmental resources that available for human are limited and the concept of resource efficiency is the human response and management for the correct use of resources against this limitation. Sustainability analysis is the basis for setting environmental standards that define and control the level of resource utilization that express the distance between the optimum conditions and the current situation. Impermanence of resources, especially water resources is one of the main challenges that the whole world including our country, Iran is facing severely. In agriculture, sustainability of this resource depends to type of utilization methods and cropping pattern more than anything else. Therefore, determining and comparing the crop production efficiency of different fields and its potential value could be used for determining the sustainability in the region. Therefore, in this study potential crop water productivity (PCWP) defined and compared with actual values that were obtained from field measurements. Moreover, a method for evaluating the validity of farm production efficiency was introduced that is essential for identifying the key issues of water resources management. Results showed that an optimum value of water supplying hydro-module is equal to 0.44 (Lit/sec-ha) that current water harvesting are more than two times of it and the average production sustainability risk is about 38%. By using uncertainty method superior farms identified which could be applied as models that contributed in increasing management factor and consequently CWP. The average values of CWP in superior farm was 1and 54% in other parts of the region. High CWP was not the reason for selecting the farm as a superior but its probability was also considered.