Agricultural economic losses caused by protection of the ecological basic flow of rivers

Equitable distribution of agricultural and ecological water is a great challenge, which has important implications for food safety, with models required to calculate agricultural economic losses caused through protection of the ecological basic flow of rivers. A new model has been used to calculate agricultural economic losses caused by river ecological basic flow in the Baoji Section of the Weihe River, which is the largest tributary of the Yellow River, China. Results show that agricultural economic losses were negatively correlated to high levels of water runoff, with the agricultural water sector often unable to safeguard river ecological basic flow systems when annual food safety guarantee levels of 400 kg per person were met. Water-saving measures could be used to help protect river ecological basic flow, based on policies of agricultural ecological compensation, water rights transactions and encouraging the public to employ appropriate water-saving measures. However, whilst recommendations from this study enabled the agricultural water department to decrease economic losses and improve food safety guarantee levels, they could not provide full protection of river ecological basic flow.