Assessing the hotspots of crop water footprint in Jilin Province of China

Water is one of the important key biophysical factors determining crop production. The increasing demand for crop products has placed substantial pressures on water resources and then led to a series of water issues. To shed light on multiple water issues in crop production, taking water footprint (WF) as a measurement, a WF hotspot index system including green water scarcity (GWS), blue water scarcity (BWS), water pollution level (WPL), water use efficiency ratio (WUER), and water use benefit ratio (WUBR) was constructed, and an empirical study was conducted to assess the WF hotspots of crop production in Jilin Province. Multiple types of hotspots exhibited obvious differences in spatio-temporal distribution. Hotspots of BWS and WPL were concentrated in the middle and western subregions and the grades of hotspots were higher in the drought and normal years. BWS and WPL had the same changing trend, showing superimposed distribution in space. Hotspots of GWS and WUBR occurred in most prefectures, whereas there were more WUBR hotspots and fewer GWS hotspots in the humid year. The hotspots of WUER were scattered in fewer prefectures with no obvious differences in different rainfall years. The water issues in the middle and western subregions were various and the grades of hotspots were higher than those in eastern subregion. The results of this study would contribute to comprehensively understanding various water issues during crop production and providing more information for sustainable agricultural water management.