Measurement of eco-efficiency of wheat based on water footprint

Economic Ecological Efficiency is defined as the efficiency of using environmental resources to meet human needs. This concept can be considered as a suitable criterion for evaluating the sustainability of production and its economic efficiency. Due to the fact that the production of agricultural products is associated with environmental effects and the highest amount of water consumption is used to produce agricultural products on a global scale, so in this study, in order to investigate the environmental effects of wheat production, water index was used. For this purpose, first the traces of wheat water in the provinces of the country during the period 2000-2011 were calculated and then the economic-ecological efficiency of wheat production was estimated. The results of water footprint calculation showed that the provinces of Gilan, South Khorasan, Semnan and Sistan and Baluchestan have the average total of more water footprint in wheat production. Also, the average water, green and gray water footprint in the country during the study period was equal to 2625.7, 428.1 and 594.1 cubic meters per ton. The results of estimating the economic-environmental efficiency also showed that among the studied variables, compositional input and green water footprint have the most positive effect on improving the production value of wheat. The results also show that the provinces of East Azerbaijan, North Khorasan and Khorasan Razavi have the lowest average efficiency and the provinces of Gilan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Mazandaran and Ilam have the highest economic-ecological efficiency of wheat production, respectively. The average total economic-ecological efficiency of wheat production was estimated to be 0.84. Also, the results of estimating the inefficiency model showed that the economic-ecological efficiency of crop production is higher for areas with per capita GDP and higher rainfall