Assessment of Water Consumption Pattern & Agricultural Production using Water accounting Plus (WA+) Framework: A case study of Mahi River basin

Concerns about managing water resources and ensuring food security in arid and semi-arid regions have grown due to increasing demands on water resources and food production. The Water Accounting Plus (WA+) approach is employed in this context to determine water consumption pathways occurring on various land uses, crop production (Land Productivity: LP), and Water Productivity (WP) in the Mahi Basin, India. The WA+ framework is appropriate for the data-scarce region since it allows the use of satellite-driven datasets for analyzing hydrological processes. The Budyko curve concept is used to differentiate between irrigation- and rain-fed agriculture by identifying the green and blue water consumption (ET). The WA+ framework uses remote sensing-based datasets from various sources for this purpose, which were used in this study for the period of 2003-2020. The average ETgreen and ETblue in the Mahi basin are found to be 15.8 km³/year and 12.32 km³/year, respectively. The average LP and WP for both the irrigated and rainfed cereals in the basin are found as 2287.71 kg/ha & 1713.62 kg/ha and 0.721 kg/m³ & 0.483 kg/m³, respectively, from 2003 to 2020. The results also indicate that the basin is highly reliant on irrigation for agricultural activities, which are neither efficient nor productive. There is significant potential for improvement in water production and beneficial water usage by using proper water management techniques. This study emphasizes the significance of water accounting and information for decision-makers, researchers, and farmer communities to create realistic goals and increase crop production in water-scarce locations.