For example, the WF can be calculated for crops, goods, services, a specific activity, a business, an organization, and an individual or for a community. As an indicator that relates human consumption to global water resources, the concept of “Water Footprint” (WF) was defined by Hoekstra (2003), and later elaborated on by Hoekstra and Chapagain (2008). Meeting the growing water demands and at the same time reducing the water footprint of agricultural production is therefore one of the greatest societal challenges of our time ( Foley et al., 2011 Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014). In addition, the factors influencing water use efficiency in crop production are manifold and vary with crops, crop management, environment and scales. Numerous attempts have been undertaken to improve the effective use of water in agricultural crop production but many results are only locally valid and cannot easily be extrapolated to other regions. Additionally, the increasing world population, welfare and the subsequent increasing need of water for food and bioenergy production, industry and other human activities, will require a more efficient agriculture especially with regard to crop water productivity, where irrigation is the dominant consumer of freshwater resources. The agricultural sector makes up the main share in global freshwater consumption ( Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012), and is therefore responsible for a large part of the water scarcity in many drought prone regions (Zhuo et al., 2016). Priority should be given to its sustainable and effective use. Water is a key resource for human activities and a critical trigger for the welfare of the whole society.
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