Water Footprint and Crop Water Usage of Oil Palm (Eleasis guineensis) in Central Kalimantan: Environmental Sustainability Indicators for Different Crop Age and Soil Conditions

Various issues related to oil palm production, such as biodiversity, drought, water scarcity, and water and soil resource exploitation, have become major challenges for environmental sustainability. The water footprint method indicates that the quantity of water used by plants to produce one biomass product could become a parameter to assess the environmental sustainability for a plantation. The objective of this study is to calculate the water footprint of oil palm on a temporal scale based on root water uptake with a specific climate condition under different crop age and soil type conditions, as a means to assess environmental sustainability. The research was conducted in Pundu village, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The methodology adopted in carrying out this study consisted of monitoring soil moisture, rainfall, and the water table, and estimating reference evapotranspiration (ETo), root water uptake, and the oil palm water footprint. Based on the study, it was shown that the oil palm water usage in the observation area varies with different crop ages and soil types from 3.07–3.73 mm/day, with the highest contribution of oil palm water usage was in the first root zone which correlates to the root density distribution. The total water footprint values obtained were between 0.56 and 1.14 m³/kg for various plant ages and soil types. This study also found that the source of green water from rainfall on the upper oil palm root zone delivers the highest contribution to oil palm root water uptake than the blue water from groundwater on the bottom layer root zone. View Full-Text