Salari, SamiraKarandish, FatemehHaghighat jou, ParvizMartínez Aldaya, Maite2023-05-022023-05-022023Salari, S., Karandish, F., Haghighat Jou, P., & Aldaya, M. M. (2023). Hydro-environmental sustainability of crop production under socioeconomic drought. Water, 15(2), 288. https://doi.org/10.3390/w150202882073-444110.3390/w15020288https://academica-e.unavarra.es/handle/2454/45214A comprehensive framework for revealing the jeopardization between SDGs 2 and 6 is provided in this study. Along with a water footprint (WF) assessment, the 30-years pattern of agricultural WFs and its hydro-environmental, social, and ecopolitical (SEP) consequences were quantified for the major food producer regions of Iran, as it is a water-bankrupted country under socioeconomic drought. In addition, the enforced impacts of major water/food-related policies on environmental sustainability were analyzed through an institutional assessment. During 1986–2016, BWS and GWD raised with annual average rates of 5% and 44%, respectively. Consequently, SEP status prospered along with an 18% increase in irrigated area, 198% in added-value by crop production and 5% by staple-crop exports, and 51% in the number of agricultural workers. The Pearson correlation analysis revealed a significant tradeoff between self-supplied food availability and SEP. A 54% increase in food production occurred at the cost of 80% overexploitation in blue water resources and quality degradation. An annual average increase of 1.1% in P/ETo indicates the dominant role of anthropogenic interventions in such deteriorations. The institutional assessment demonstrated that environmental sustainability policies have never been applied as promoting policies to boost self-sufficiency in food production. According to the results, hydrological sustainability requires a transformative vision in national policies to exploit limited water and soil resources while preserving the environment.application/pdfeng© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.Blue water scarcityCash-scarce communityEnvironmental deteriorationsFood insecurityHydrological sustainabilityIntensive agricultureinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article2023-05-02info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess