The agriculture sector is vulnerable to climate change and related changes in the hydrological cycle. In order to understand the changes in climatic variables and their implications for agricultural water consumption, the present study aims to analyse the temporal variability of climatic factors and water footprint (WF) of rice and wheat during the period 1986–2017 in Ludhiana, Punjab. Further, it aims to identify the dominant climatic factors that cause variation in reference evapotranspiration (ET_o) and WF of rice and wheat. WF was estimated using CROPWAT, and Path analysis was used to determine the dominant climate variables. Temporal trends of climate variables were analysed using the Mann–Kendall test. The total WF of both rice and wheat shows a significant declining trend over the past 32 years. Sunshine duration and wind speed were the dominant factors influencing the variability of total WF of rice and wheat, respectively, whereas rainfall strongly influenced the green and blue WF of rice and wheat. Rainfall had a high variability, and consequently, irrigation water requirement was highly fluctuating. This indicates the significant impact of present and projected erratic pattern of precipitation on agriculture due to climate change and reiterates the importance of adaptive measures like rainwater harvesting and capacity building.

农业部门容易受到气候变化和水文循环相关变化的影响。为了了解气候变量的变化及其对农业用水量的影响，本研究旨在分析 1986-2017 年旁遮普省卢迪亚纳的气候因素和水稻和小麦的水足迹 (WF) 的时间变异性。此外，它旨在确定导致参考蒸散量 (ET _o) 和大米和小麦的 WF。WF 使用 CROPWAT 估算，路径分析用于确定主要气候变量。使用 Mann-Kendall 检验分析气候变量的时间趋势。过去32年，水稻和小麦的总WF均呈显着下降趋势。日照时长和风速分别是影响水稻和小麦总 WF 变异性的主要因素，而降雨对水稻和小麦的绿色和蓝色 WF 影响很大。降雨量变化很大，因此灌溉用水需求波动很大。这表明由于气候变化，当前和预计的降水不稳定模式对农业产生了重大影响，并重申了雨水收集和能力建设等适应性措施的重要性。