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WATER PRODUCTIVITY IN AGRICULTURE: CHALLENGES IN CONCEPTS, TERMS AND VALUES
Author(s) -
Heydari Nader
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
irrigation and drainage
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.421
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1531-0361
pISSN - 1531-0353
DOI - 10.1002/ird.1816
Subject(s) - terminology , productivity , agriculture , water use efficiency , irrigation , water sector , agricultural productivity , water efficiency , farm water , water resource management , environmental economics , business , economics , environmental science , water conservation , environmental engineering , water supply , geography , economic growth , linguistics , ecology , philosophy , archaeology , biology
The concept of irrigation efficiency firstly defined by Israelsen in 1950. His definition remained fundamentally unchanged for more than 40 years, until from the 1970s the definition was moderately changed and modifications suggested. In recent decades the irrigation efficiency concept has gradually been replaced, both in the literature and in practice, with the introduction of crop water use efficiency (WUE) and later on with agricultural water productivity (WP). The issue of water management and interventions for its improvement runs across sectors. Different users and beneficiaries of water have legitimate interests in how water is allocated and used in their own as well as in competing sectors. The language and terminology of the debate is of importance to the value that analysis can add to knowledge. Even expert discussions can be confused by ambiguous terminology, while the water‐dependent sectors have no consistent terminology to distinguish between consumptive and non‐consumptive uses, or recoverable and non‐recoverable return flows. This paper provides an overview of the concepts of WP and its predecessors E and WUE, with a focus on WP for better planning and efficient use of water in the agricultural sector. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.