Articles | Volume 22, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3245-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3245-2018
Research article
 | 
11 Jun 2018
Research article |  | 11 Jun 2018

Grey water footprint reduction in irrigated crop production: effect of nitrogen application rate, nitrogen form, tillage practice and irrigation strategy

Abebe D. Chukalla, Maarten S. Krol, and Arjen Y. Hoekstra

Data sets

EUMETNET/ECSN optional programme: European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D) Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD), version 4 A. Klein Tank http://www.ecad.eu/dailydata/

CLIMWAT for CROPWAT. A climatic database for irrigation planning and management M. Smith http://www.fao.org/land-water/databases-and-software/climwat-for-cropwat/en/

The APEX Model J. R. Williams and R. C. Izaurralde https://epicapex.tamu.edu/model-executables

SPE-2: The soil profile analytical database for Europe, Beta Version 2.0 J. A. Hannam, J. M. Hollis, R. J. A. Jones, P. H. Bellamy, S. E. Hayes, M. H. Liedekerke, and L. Montanarella http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/european-soil-database-v20-vector-and-attribute-data

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Short summary
This paper provides the first detailed and comprehensive study regarding the potential for reducing the grey WF of crop production by changing management practice such as the nitrogen application rate, nitrogen form (inorganic N or manure N), tillage practice and irrigation strategy. The paper shows that although water pollution (grey WF) can be reduced dramatically, this comes together with a great yield reduction.