: Managing Virtual Water of Agricultural Products in Urmia Lake Basin

 Regarding the problems created for the Urmia Lake basin, which is mainly due to the lack of integrated water resources management in this basin, it is necessary to conduct studies with respect to agricultural water consumption management approach. In this research, using the available statistics on the production and consumption of crops and gardens, as well as the export and import of these commodities in the Urmia lake basin, the amount of exchange with regard to the virtual water of each product was determined. Given the crop water requirement of each plant and its yield, the amount of water used to produce the final product was determined, and then, with regard to the export and import data of each product, the figures for the water trade of the basin were identified. During the study period (2008-2012), in average, sugar beet (by devoting 394 MCM) and berries (by devoting 0.001 MCM) have highest and lowest virtual water export, respectively. In contrast, rice (by devoting 936.1 MCM) and sumac (by devoting 0.003 MCM) have highest and lowest virtual water import, respectively. Over the studied years, 9.7 MCM of virtual water were imported to the basin. Based on the results, it is also proposed to reduce the export of products such as sugar beet and onion and instead, by importing these products it could be possible to save the water. Therefore, with the presented method in this paper, the possibility of restoring water resources in a basin can be assessed through virtual water management.