Cool Farm Tool Water: A global on-line tool to assess water use in crop production

Kayatz, Benjamin; Baroni, Gabriele; Hillier, Jon; Lüdtke, Stefan; Heathcote, Richard; Malin, Daniella; van Tonder, Carl; Kuster, Benjamin; Freese, Dirk; Hüttl, Reinhard; Wattenbach, Martin

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.09.160

Title: Cool Farm Tool Water: A global on-line tool to assess water use in crop production

Journal Article · 01 January 2019 · Journal of Cleaner Production

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.09.160 · OSTI ID:1476962

Kayatz, Benjamin ^[1]; Baroni, Gabriele ^[2]; Hillier, Jon ^[3]; Lüdtke, Stefan ^[4]; Heathcote, Richard ^[5]; Malin, Daniella ^[5]; van Tonder, Carl ^[6]; Kuster, Benjamin ^[7]; Freese, Dirk ^[8]; Hüttl, Reinhard ^[4]; Wattenbach, Martin ^[4]

GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, Potsdam (Germany); University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen (United Kingdom). Institute of Biological & Environmental Sciences
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, (Germany). Department Computational Hydrosystems. University of Potsdam, Potsdam (Germany). Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences
The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies and the Roslin Institute, Easter Bush Campus, (United Kingdom). Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security
GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, Potsdam (Germany)
Stony Stratford (United Kingdom). Cool Farm Alliance, The Stable Yard
Magdalen Road, Oxford (United Kingdom). Anthesis
Virtual City Systems, Tauentzienstrasse Berlin (Germany)
Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus-Senftenberg, Cottbus (Germany)

The agricultural sector accounts for 70% of all water consumption and poses great pressure on ground water resources. Therefore, evaluating agricultural water consumption is highly important as it allows supply chain actors to identify practices which are associated with unsustainable water use, which risk depleting current water resources and impacting future production. However, these assessments are often not feasible for crop producers as data, models and experiments are required in order to conduct them. This work introduces a new on-line agricultural water use assessment tool that provides the water footprint and irrigation requirements at field scale based on an enhanced FAO56 approach combined with a global climate, crop and soil databases. This has been included in the Cool Farm Tool – an online tool which already provides metrics for greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity impacts and therefore allows for a more holistic assessment of environmental sustainability in farming and agricultural supply chains. The model is tested against field scale and state level water footprint data providing good results. The tool provides a practical, reliable way to assess agricultural water use, and offers a means to engage growers and stakeholders in identifying efficient water management practices.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC); USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; AC02-05ch11231

OSTI ID:: 1476962

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1623690

Journal Information:: Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 207, Issue C; ISSN 0959-6526

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 14 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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