**1. Introduction**

Water is an essential component that is required in largest quantity by livestock. About 80% of animal water requirements is met by drinking water, and the rest of water needs are met through feed water. Production and reproduction performance of animals is directly affected by water availability and quality. Nonavailability of adequate water may cause adverse effects on animal growth and production. Water resources are shrinking day by day, and it warrants judicious use of water.

Milk production is challenged by increasing water scarcity and simultaneously growing demand for food and feed. Globally livestock feed sourcing is seen one of the major causes for water depletion, and therefore improvement in livestock water productivity is the need of the hour. Feed sources in smallholder production system largely consist of grazing, crop residue and concentrates, etc. Extensive smallholder systems in dryland ecoregions face the major challenge of water depletion for feed production. This demands better understanding of livestock-water interactions and designing strategies to improve water use efficiency (WUE).

Water use efficiency can be defined as the net return for a unit of water used. Improvement in water use efficiency aims at producing more food, income, better livelihoods and ecosystem services with less water. There is a considerable scope for improving water use efficiency of crop, livestock and other allied enterprises at field, thereby achieving sustainable food production. Water harvesting, supplemental irrigation, deficit irrigation, precision water application techniques and soil-water conservation practices are the bouquet of technology choices that we can resort to in achieving this goal. Practices not directly related to water management also impact water use efficiency because of interactive effects such as those derived from improvements in soil fertility, pest and disease control, crop selection or access to better markets.

However, we need to be cautious about achieving water use efficiency gains. Crop water use efficiency is quite high in highly productive regions, and yield (per unit of land area) does not necessarily correlate with water use efficiency in all cases. Water reuse within an irrigated area can compensate for the perceived losses at the field in terms of water quantity, but that will not be of any help in maintaining the water quality. We need to create an enabling environment for enhancing water use efficiency by farmers in field. Apart from this, we need a thorough understanding of the biophysical environment as well as social and economic dynamics existing between different elements of farm and field.

While identifying priority areas for bringing in improvements in water use efficiency and formulating strategies and action points for bringing in substantial improvements in water use efficiency, the following points have to be considered: (i) high-poverty less water efficient areas, (ii) water-scarce areas, (iii) areas neglected for development of water resources, and (iv) areas of faster water resource depletion. However, these are huge challenges to be achieved, and strategies need to be evolved keeping in view complex biophysical, social and economic factors.

#### **2. Water footprint**

Water footprint is defined as the extent of water use in relation to consumption of goods and services by people. In a broader sense, a country's water footprint is the volume of water required for the production of the goods and services used for direct and indirect consumption by the population of the country. Water footprint can be of two types: (i) internal water footprint or water used from internal or domestic resources and (ii) external water footprint or water used to produce imported goods and services. The USA has an average water footprint of 2480 m3 / cap/year, and China has an average footprint of 700 m3 /cap/year. Global average water footprint is 1240 m3 /cap/year. Any country's water footprint is determined by factors such as consumption volume (with respect to gross national income); consumption pattern; climate; and water use efficiency of agriculture and allied sectors.

The water footprint gives an account of amount of water used to produce each of the goods and services we use. It can be measured for a single process, such as growing a crop, for a product and fuel, etc. It also gives an idea about volume of water being consumed by a country in a specific basin or from a specific source. The water footprint looks at both direct and indirect water use of a product. It includes water consumption and pollution throughout production cycle from supply chain to consumer.

Water footprint can be measured in terms of per unit of goods produced and per hectare of area under crops or in any other functional units. This also gives us

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*Water Use and Dairy Production System: An Indian Experience*

an idea about different uses of our limited freshwater resources and the ways and means by which they get polluted. If the water is sourced from a water-scarce area, the impact of low water productivity to high water footprint can be significant and

For the purpose of quantifying its use, water can be divided into three components: green, blue and grey. The three components together provide a comprehensive picture of water use by demarcating water source, either as rainfall, groundwater, or surface water, apart from freshwater requirement for removal of

1.**Green water footprint**: water from precipitation/rainfall that is accumulated in deep soil and includes the evapotranspiration component and water incorporated by plants. This is the most relevant water component for agricultural

2.**Blue water footprint:** surface water or groundwater resources and is either evaporated or incorporated into a product across a temporal and spatial regime. Irrigated cropping, industry and domestic consumption of water falls

3.**Grey water footprint:** volume of freshwater essentially needed to remove pollutants and make it reusable. This component takes into account point source pollutants discharged to any freshwater source directly or indirectly or other

Livestock plays a vital role in supporting rural livelihoods in the Indian context. At the same time, there are growing concerns regarding highly water-intensive operations in livestock rearing, which is considered as one of the major enterprises for water depletion and putting huge pressure on depleting and water-scarce resources. In forage-based livestock production systems, be it grazing, mixedirrigated or mixed-rain fed, feed sourcing is largely contributed from pasture or crop residue. In dryland areas of arid and semi-arid ecosystems, extensive foragebased livestock production systems are in place, and in such situations, water used for feed production is a major concern. Thus, such situations warrant the pressing need for understanding the livestock water dynamics and better strategies and framework for developing comprehensive entry points to improve livestock water

Based on global experiences from different livestock production systems, the entry points for improving livestock water use efficiency can be categorised into

iv.Institutions to create enabling environment, for better water use management.

v.Market linkages for bringing out water saving technologies to consumers.

different groups, based on their operational limits. They are:

ii.Feed sourcing and feeding management.

i.Feed water productivity.

iii.Livestock feed use efficiencies.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91193*

require immediate attention.

pollutants, to make it reusable.

**3. Types of water footprint**

and allied products.

into blue water footprint.

diffuse sources.

use efficiency.

*Water Use and Dairy Production System: An Indian Experience DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91193*

an idea about different uses of our limited freshwater resources and the ways and means by which they get polluted. If the water is sourced from a water-scarce area, the impact of low water productivity to high water footprint can be significant and require immediate attention.

For the purpose of quantifying its use, water can be divided into three components: green, blue and grey. The three components together provide a comprehensive picture of water use by demarcating water source, either as rainfall, groundwater, or surface water, apart from freshwater requirement for removal of pollutants, to make it reusable.
