The effect of water-saving on water sustainability in agriculture sector.(case study of Khatam county)

In recent years¡ Khtam as a city of yazd province has been taken in to consideration due to excessive exploitation of ground water for agriculture production. The present study was carried out with two aims¡ 1- estimation of excess water for strategic crops of city such as wheat¡ barley¡ corn and watermelon¡ 2- comparison of sustainability index of water used among three separated groups based on the amount and kind of excess water. The first groups are quite efficient farmers without applying any excess water. The second group includes farmers who use extra water due to being inefficient in using of water and the third groups are those farmers who use extra water due to both inefficiency of water used and excess input for production. The average amount of excess water used for each group is zero¡ 3914.319 and 5166.669 m respectively and sustainability index obtained for each group was 458.49¡ 395.72 and 367.64 it show the inverse relationship between extra water used and sustainability index.Estimation of excess water and calculation of sustainability index was implemented by Deap2 and WinQSB.