Long-Term Water Footprint Assessment in a Rainfed Olive Tree Grove in the Umbria Region, Italy

Agriculture

Luca Rossi¹  Roberto Calisti¹  Luca Regni¹  Primo Proietti¹  Francesca Dini¹  Antonio Brunori¹  Sara Rinaldi²  Paolo Sdringola³ 

[1] Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia, via Borgo XX Giugno, 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy;Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, via G. Duranti 67, 06121 Perugia, Italy;ENEA Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development—Casaccia Research Centre, via Anguillarese 301, 00123 S. Maria di Galeria, Rome, Italy;

关键词: olive trees;    water footprint assessment;    freshwater consumption;    sustainability;   

DOI  :  10.3390/agriculture10010008

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Life Cycle Assessment (the systematic analysis of the environmental impact of products during their entire life cycle), Carbon Footprint and Water Footprint assessments play an important role in decision-making processes. These assessments can help guide land management decisions and will likely play a larger role in the future, especially in natural areas with high biodiversity. Agriculture is a substantial consumer of fresh water, so it is important to identify causes and possible solutions to optimize agricultural water use. Water footprint assessments consider water consumption from several points of view and aid in reaching Sustainable Development Goals. Olive trees are a widespread agricultural crop growing in the Mediterranean Basin and are particularly important in the Umbria region in Italy. This paper estimates the water footprint impact related to the production of 1 kg of olives in a rainfed olive orchard managed using low environmental impact techniques. Eleven years of data collection (meteorological data, olives yield data, processes data) are analyzed for typical rural conditions. The results show that local management techniques have lower water requirements than standard international usages. These results can be used to improve and to further explore agricultural water use.

【 授权许可】

Unknown