Crop Water-Saving Potential Based on the Stochastic Distance Function: The Case of Liaoning Province of China

Abstract

Scientific evaluation of crop water use efficiency is of great significance for ascertaining water-saving potential and realizing efficient utilization of water resources. In this paper, we calculated the water footprint of crop growth, pollution water footprint and production water footprint of 14 cities in Liaoning Province, China, by using the water footprint theory, established the crop water use efficiency model of stochastic frontier distance function, and analyzed the spatial-temporal variation characteristics of crop water use efficiency (WUE), ecological WUE and production WUE. Results show that: (1) the average water footprint of crop growth was 1.714 × 109 m3, the ecological water footprint of crop was 6.26 × 108 m3, and the water footprint of crop production was 2.34 × 109 m3 from 2001 to 2017 for the whole province. (2) the WUE of crop growth was 0.821, the crop ecological WUE was 0.845 and crop production was 0.865, respectively. We concluded that Liaoning province can save 17.9% of crop consumption water, equivalent to 8.38 × 108 m3, 15.5% of ecological water, equivalent to 7.25 × 108 m3 and 13.5% of production water, equivalent to 6.32 × 108 m3 by strengthening the popularization of agricultural high-efficiency water use technology and improving the level of policy management. This research provides a basic support for the evaluation of crop water-saving potential with the stochastic frontier approach in other regions.