The Water Footprint of Consumption‏ and Virtual Water Trade of Dates in Iran

Dates is one of the most important horticultural products in Iran, which has a special place in food security, economy, and trade in agricultural products. Now, Iran is one of the biggest producers of dates in the world, but the lack of water resources is one of the main challenges in producing this crop in Iran. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the water footprint of date production in Iran using three specific waters, namely blue water, green water, and greywater. Then, using the concept of virtual water footprint introduced by Hoekstra and Hang (2003), the water trade footprint for the date crop was calculated for the years 2018-2001. The results show that the average annual harvest of water resources for date production in Iran is 3.486 billion m3, a total of 69.752 billion m3 of water was consumed between 2001 and 2018 to produce dates in Iran. 68% (2.352 billion m3 per year and a total of 426.466 billion m3) of the total need for date irrigation in Iran through abstraction from groundwater or so-called blue water, 28% (0.976 billion m3 per year, A total of 17.526 billion m3 has been supplied through green water and 4 % (0.139 billion m3 per year, a total of 2.764 billion m3) has been supplied through grey water. Examination of water footprint of date production showed that to produce 1 kg of dates in Iran,