Medições e modelagem da pegada hídrica da cana-de-açúcar cultivada no Brasil.

Abstract

The water footprint concept has gained interest because the freshwater is a global resource to the full range of activities and can be instrumental in helping to understand how activities and products relate to water scarcity. The purpose of this study is to compare the sugarcane water footprint measurements of crop and derived crop product to the traditional method used for estimating water footprint of crops and using more complete soil water balance at the field level. The field experiment was carried out in commercial distillery Fazenda Capim II located in the coastal area of state of Paraiba Brazil, in the period from October 2009 to August 2010 with sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.). The results indicated that the green and gray water footprint values decrease as there is an increase in irrigation. Inversely, the blue water footprint values increase as there is an increase in irrigation. The sugarcane water footprint based on the CROPWAT model overestimates green and blue water footprint values and underestimates the gay water footprint values obtained from the soil water balance.