The water footprint assessment manual: setting the global standard

This book contains the global standard for \u27water footprint assessment\u27 as developed and maintained by the Water Footprint Network (WFN). It covers a comprehensive set of definitions and methods for water footprint accounting. It shows how water footprints are calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses. It also includes methods for water footprint sustainability assessment and a library of water footprint response options. A shared standard on definitions and calculation methods is crucial given the rapidly growing interest in companies and governments to use water footprint accounts as a basis for formulating sustainable water strategies and policies

Arjen Y. Hoekstra 1967–2019

Arjen Hoekstra introduced the water footprint in 20021, building on the concept of virtual water Tony Allan to discuss the role of trade in alleviating water scarcity in the Middle East. He thereby opened a new dimension in the debate around fair and sustainable allocation of freshwater resources. He laid the foundations to show the role of indirect water (that is, water used elsewhere to produce goods we consume) in our daily life beyond our direct use for drinking, cooking or washing. The water footprint is an indicator of direct and indirect water use by a producer or consumer, showing how water flows through our economies by tracing it through supply chains and trade. Hoekstra was born and raised in Delft, a student town close to the Dutch North Sea coast. According to his two brothers, at a young age he was already known for his sharp mind, passion for reasoning and strong argumentation. Later he earned an MSc degree in Civil Engineering and a PhD degree in Policy Analysis from Delft University of Technology, after which he worked for few years at UNESCO-IHE, including in Zimbabwe

Global Monthly Water Scarcity: Blue Water Footprints versus Blue Water Availability

Freshwater scarcity is a growing concern, placing considerable importance on the accuracy of indicators used to characterize and map water scarcity worldwide. We improve upon past efforts by using estimates of blue water footprints (consumptive use of ground- and surface water flows) rather than water withdrawals, accounting for the flows needed to sustain critical ecological functions and by considering monthly rather than annual values. We analyzed 405 river basins for the period 1996–2005. In 201 basins with 2.67 billion inhabitants there was severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year. The ecological and economic consequences of increasing degrees of water scarcity – as evidenced by the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo), Indus, and Murray-Darling River Basins – can include complete desiccation during dry seasons, decimation of aquatic biodiversity, and substantial economic disruption

Global Monthly Water Scarcity: Blue Water Footprints versus Blue Water Availability

Freshwater scarcity is a growing concern, placing considerable importance on the accuracy of indicators used to characterize and map water scarcity worldwide. We improve upon past efforts by using estimates of blue water footprints (consumptive use of ground- and surface water flows) rather than water withdrawals, accounting for the flows needed to sustain critical ecological functions and by considering monthly rather than annual values. We analyzed 405 river basins for the period 1996–2005. In 201 basins with 2.67 billion inhabitants there was severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year. The ecological and economic consequences of increasing degrees of water scarcity – as evidenced by the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo), Indus, and Murray-Darling River Basins – can include complete desiccation during dry seasons, decimation of aquatic biodiversity, and substantial economic disruption

Arjen Y. Hoekstra 1967–2019

Arjen Hoekstra introduced the water footprint in 20021, building on the concept of virtual water Tony Allan to discuss the role of trade in alleviating water scarcity in the Middle East. He thereby opened a new dimension in the debate around fair and sustainable allocation of freshwater resources. He laid the foundations to show the role of indirect water (that is, water used elsewhere to produce goods we consume) in our daily life beyond our direct use for drinking, cooking or washing. The water footprint is an indicator of direct and indirect water use by a producer or consumer, showing how water flows through our economies by tracing it through supply chains and trade. Hoekstra was born and raised in Delft, a student town close to the Dutch North Sea coast. According to his two brothers, at a young age he was already known for his sharp mind, passion for reasoning and strong argumentation. Later he earned an MSc degree in Civil Engineering and a PhD degree in Policy Analysis from Delft University of Technology, after which he worked for few years at UNESCO-IHE, including in Zimbabwe

Globalisation of water : opportunities and threats of virtual water trade; Dissertation, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft and Delft University of Technology.

Where the river basin is generally seen as the appropriate unit for analyzing freshwater availability and use, it becomes increasingly important to put freshwater issues in a global context. The book analyses the opportunities and threats of international virtual water trade in the context of solving national and regional problems of water shortages. Central questions addressed in the study are: What are the fluxes of virtual water related to the international trade of products? Is the import of virtual water a solution to water-scarce nations or merely a threat of becoming water dependent? Can the international trade of products be a tool to enhance water use efficiency globally, or, is it a way of shifting the environmental burdens to a distant location? To understand the global component of fresh water demand and supply, a set of indicators has been developed. The framework thus developed has been applied to different case studies. An estimated 16% of the global water use is not for producing domestically consumed products but products for export. With increasing globalisation of trade, global water interdependencies and overseas externalities are likely to increase. At the same time liberalisation of trade creates opportunities to increase global water use efficiency and physical water savings. Many nations save domestic water resources by importing water-intensive products and exporting commodities that are less water intensive. As a result of product trades from more productive sites to the less productive sites, there is a saving of 6 per cent of the global water use in agriculture. The study explores the use of virtual water transfers as an alternative to large scale inter-basin real water transfers has been analysed in a case study for China along with some major product studies such as coffee, tea and cotton products. The consumption of a product is connected to a chain of impacts on the water resources in the countries where it is grown and processed. The study has estimated the water footprint of worldwide consumption. Detailed impact study has been carried out for the case of cotton. It identifies both the location and the character of the impacts. The research distinguishes between three types of impact: evaporation of infiltrated rainwater for cotton growth (green water use), withdrawal of ground- or surface water for irrigation or processing (blue water use) and water pollution during growth or processing. Given the general lack of proper water pricing mechanisms or other ways of transmitting production-information, cotton consumers have little incentive to take responsibility for the impacts on remote water systems. It is found that the international trade has indirectly enhanced the global water use efficiency and helped to address the national water scarcity in some water-poor countries by saving national water resources. However, this was possible at the cost of increased water dependencies between nations. The existing indicators of water use are not sufficient to address the effect of consumption on water resources. It is proposed to use the concept of water footprint to understand the real appropriation of water by a nation and also to understand the chain of impacts on global water resources as a result of local consumption. The future trade negotiations should undertake the notion that trade is not only a tool of global economic development; it can also be a means of externalising the water footprint and thus shifting environmental burdens to distant location

The water footprints of Morocco and the Netherlands: Global water use as a result of domestic consumption of agricultural commodities

The volume of international trade in agricultural commodities is increasing faster than the global volume of production, which is an indicator of growing international dependencies in the area of food supply. Although less obvious, it also implies growing international dependencies in the field of water supply. By importing food, countries also import water in virtual form. The aim of the paper is to assess the water footprints of Morocco, a semi-arid/arid country, and the Netherlands, a humid country. The water footprint of a country is defined as the volume of water used for the production of the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of the country. The internal water footprint is the volume of water used from domestic water resources; the external water footprint is the volume of water used in other countries to produce goods and services imported and consumed by the inhabitants of the country. The study shows that both Morocco and the Netherlands import more water in virtual form (in the form of water-intensive agricultural commodities) than they export, which makes them dependent on water resources elsewhere in the world. The water footprint calculations show that Morocco depends for 14% on water resources outside its own borders, while the Netherlands depend on foreign water resources for 95%. It is shown that international trade can result in global water saving when a water-intensive commodity is traded from an area where it is produced with high water productivity to an area with lower water productivity. If Morocco had to domestically produce the products that are now imported from the Netherlands, it would require 780 million m3/year. However, the imported products from the Netherlands were actually produced with only 140 million m3/year, which implies a global water saving of 640 million m3/year

Vulnerabilities of the European Union's economy to hydrological extremes outside its borders

Climate change is leading to increased water scarcity and drought in many parts of the world. This has implications for the European Union (EU) because a lot of the water intensive goods consumed or used there are produced abroad. This makes the EU's economy dependent on water resources well beyond its borders since when a country imports water intensive goods, indirectly it also imports virtual water (water needed to produce the imported goods). This study maps the EU's global dependency on water resources outside its borders in terms of virtual water imports and assesses how water scarcity and drought may disrupt supplies of key food crops that it imports. The EU uses approximately 668 km3 of water for all of the goods it produces, consumes and exports, annually. Around 38% of that water comes from outside its borders, which means that the EU's economy is highly dependent on the availability of water in other parts of the world. In the near future, supplies of certain crops to the EU could be disrupted due to water scarcity in other parts of the world; a large portion of the water used in producing soybeans, rice, sugarcane, cotton, almonds, pistachios and grapes for import to the EU comes from areas with significant or severe levels of water scarcity. Although the immediate risks to the EU's economy are due to current water scarcity levels, any disruption to rainfall patterns that occur in the future, due to the effects of climate change in the countries of origin of key crops, could have a far greater impact. This is because as much as 92% of the EU's total external water demand from agriculture is attributed to green water use, availability of which has relatively higher vulnerability to drought

Water Footprints and Sustainable Water Allocation

Water Footprint Assessment (WFA) is a quickly growing research field. This Special Issue contains a selection of papers advancing the field or showing innovative applications. The first seven papers are geographic WFA studies, from an urban to a continental scale; the next five papers have a global scope; the final five papers focus on water sustainability from the business point of view. The collection of papers shows that the historical picture of a town relying on its hinterland for its supply of water and food is no longer true: the water footprint of urban consumers is global. It has become clear that wise water governance is no longer the exclusive domain of government, even though water is and will remain a public resource with government in a primary role. With most water being used for producing our food and other consumer goods, and with product supply chains becoming increasingly complex and global, there is a growing awareness that consumers, companies and investors also have a key role. The interest in sustainable water use grows quickly, in both civil society and business communities, but the poor state of transparency of companies regarding their direct and indirect water use implies that there is still a long way to go before we can expect that companies effectively contribute to making water footprints more sustainable at a relevant scale

Vulnerabilities of the European Union’s Economy to Hydrological Extremes Outside its Borders

Climate change is leading to increased water scarcity and drought in many parts of the world. This has implications for the European Union (EU) because a lot of the water intensive goods consumed or used there are produced abroad. This makes the EU’s economy dependent on water resources well beyond its borders since when a country imports water intensive goods, indirectly it also imports virtual water (water needed to produce the imported goods). This study maps the EU’s global dependency on water resources outside its borders in terms of virtual water imports and assesses how water scarcity and drought may disrupt supplies of key food crops that it imports. The EU uses approximately 668 km3 of water for all of the goods it produces, consumes and exports, annually. Around 38% of that water comes from outside its borders, which means that the EU’s economy is highly dependent on the availability of water in other parts of the world. In the near future, supplies of certain crops to the EU could be disrupted due to water scarcity in other parts of the world; a large portion of the water used in producing soybeans, rice, sugarcane, cotton, almonds, pistachios and grapes for import to the EU comes from areas with significant or severe levels of water scarcity. Although the immediate risks to the EU’s economy are due to current water scarcity levels, any disruption to rainfall patterns that occur in the future, due to the effects of climate change in the countries of origin of key crops, could have a far greater impact. This is because as much as 92% of the EU’s total external water demand from agriculture is attributed to green water use, availability of which has relatively higher vulnerability to drough