Malaysian Journal of Sustainable Agriculture (MJSA)

CONSUMPTIVE USE OF WATER BY SELECTED CASH CROPS IN MALAYSIA

ABSTRACT

CONSUMPTIVE USE OF WATER BY SELECTED CASH CROPS IN MALAYSIA

Malaysian Journal of Sustainable Agriculture (MJSA)
Author: Siti Norliyana Haruna, Marlia M. Hanafiah

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

DOI: 10.26480/mjsa.02.2017.06.08

A rapid development in economic sectors has induced the water depletion in most of the developing country, particularly for Malaysia. This study estimates the consumptive water use of cultivating 5 cash crops, i.e. cassava, maize, rice, sugarcane and sweet potato in Peninsular Malaysia. The consumptive water uses for cultivating these 5 crops was determined based on the CROPWAT 8.0 and Penman Monteith model. CROPWAT 8.0 model was used to compute the evapotranspiration and crop water requirement (effective rainfall and irrigation requirement) of the cash crops grown in Peninsular Malaysia from 2005-2013 (9 years). It was found that the green water uses for cultivating cassava, maize, paddy, sugarcane and sweet potato for Peninsular Malaysia is higher than the blue water use. In conclusion, water use for cultivating agricultural crops will accelerate the competition on the consumption of clean water with the other sectors. However, the availability of water resource in Peninsular Malaysia is sufficient to fulfil the demands for water at the present time.

Pages 06-08
Year 2017
Issue 2
Volume 1

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