CWFETB-China: Gridded dataset of consumptive water footprints, evaporation, transpiration, and associate benchmarks of crop production in China (2000-2018)

The CWFETB-China is a 5-arcmin gridded dataset of monthly green and blue water footprint of crop production (WFCP), evaporation (E), transpiration (Tr), and associated unit WFCP benchmarks for 21 crops grown in China during 2000-2018. As compared to the existing gridded WFCP datasets, the CWFETB-China has four improvements: (i) It evaluated the effects of different water supply modes (irrigated or rain-fed) and irrigation practices (furrow, sprinkler, and micro-irrigation) on water consumption throughout the crop growth period. (ii) It distinguished between monthly blue and green water consumption via soil evaporation and crop transpiration. (iii) The dataset encompassed both the WFCP in m³yr^-1 and the uWFCP in m³ton^-1. (iv) It identified uWFCP benchmarks that differentiated between various climatic zones and irrigation practices. The dataset is able to support for precise crop water productivity assessments, agricultural water-saving evaluations, the development of sustainable irrigation techniques, cropping structure optimisation, and crop-related interregional virtual water trade analysis. Format: NetCDF-4 (5 arcmin) or .xlsx files (benchmark data). Projected coordinate system: WGS 84