Estimation of the spatial and temporal water footprint of rice production in Bangladesh

As Bangladesh has expanded its irrigation coverage and has become self-sufficient on rice production to feed its vast population, there has been a strain on the country's water resources. Water footprint (WF) is an effective metric that estimates the overall water use for any product or service. This study quantified the water footprints and their components for the Aus, Aman, and Boro produced in Bangladesh. The analysis was spatially distributed for the year 1997, 2007, and 2017. The combined, estimated, spatially averaged WF for all three rice varieties (based on unit production) decreased over this 20-year period (5365 m3/tonne, 3980 m3/tonne, and 3404 m3/tonne for 1997, 2007, and 2017, respectively). Irrigation-intensive Boro rice had the lowest WF with the highest…