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Water, as an important resource in ecosystem, greatly influence human life. Increasing water use efficiency will save water resources, thus will lead to better ecosystem. Agricultural water resources are important production materials that will impinge the long-term agriculture development potential, while water use efficiency (WUE) is a key factor closely linked to agricultural production. In this study targeted at Heihe Agriculture Zone, we used a stochastic frontier production function to study agricultural production efficiency and WUE.

In particular, the effects of planting areas on farmers’ WUE were investigated. The result show current farmers’ WUE of Maize is 0.67 on average, which still can be improved largely. The farmers’ planting scales largely affect WUE of Maize. The farmers with planting scales of 0-0.3 ha and over 1.3 ha paid high attention to WUE. The optimal planting scale of water use efficiency of maize is around 3.3 ha. This study provides a scientific basis for the water resource use in arid and semiarid regions (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.