Integration of hydrological and economic approaches to water and land management in Mediterranean climates: an initial case study in agriculture

A distinction is commonly drawn in Hydrology between ‘green’ and ‘blue water’ in accounting for total water availability in semi-arid regions. The criterion underlying this classification is important for successful water management, because it reveals how much natural water is and/or could be used by households, industry and, especially, agriculture. The relative share of green and blue water is generally treated as a constant. In recent years, a growing hydro-geological literature has focused on a phenomenon that significantly affects the stability of the green/blue water ratio. This is the increase in land cover density and its impact on runoff in regions with a Mediterranean climate, such as the Ebro Basin in Spain. We seek to carry this knowledge over into the parameters of disciplines concerned with the economic valuation of water and territorial resources, and translate it into the language used by water management professionals in the expectation that this contribution will improve the way we assess and account for real water availability. The heart of the matter is that the increasing density of forest cover produces both positive and negative environmental and economic impacts, presenting new economic and environmental problems that must be examined and assessed in a hydrological-economic context. We will show that these positive and negative effects are sufficiently important to merit attention, whether they are measured in physical or economic terms. Finally, we make an initial proposal for the economic valuation of some of the effects produced by these hydrological changes.blue water; green water; hydro-economic framework; water resources accounting

Blind spots in water management, and how natural sciences could be much more relevant

Estimates of crop evapotranspiration (ET) to measure the freshwater use indicator water footprint (WF) have undoubtedly been popular and implemented (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2004), as well as the more recent extension to subnational regions and watersheds (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2010a; Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012; Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2012)..

El agua en el sistema agroalimentario: conceptos, datos generales, y enfoques desde el análisis socioeconómico y medioambiental

Esta actividad está soportada por el proyecto Red AgriFoodTe financiada por el Gobierno de Aragón, a través del fondo de inversiones de Teruel (año 2022), con participación del Gobierno de España (Ministerio de Política Territorial)

Theoretical and empirical characterization of water as a factor:Examples and related issues with the world trade model

This article originates from the theoretical and empirical characterization of factors in the World Trade Model (WTM), see Duchin (2005). It first illustrates the usefulness of this type of model for water research to address policy questions related to virtual water trade, water con-straints and water scarcity. It also illustrates the importance of certain key decisions regarding the heterogeneity of water and its relation to the technologies being employed and the prices obtained. With regard to WTM, the global economic input-output model in which multiple technologies can produce a “homogeneous output”, Steenge et al. (2018) showed that two different mechanisms should be distinguished by which multiple technologies can arise, i.e., from “technology-specific” or from “shared” factors, which implies a mechanism-specific set of prices, quantities and rents. We discuss and extend these characterizations, notably in relation to the real-world characterization of water as a factor (for which we use the terms technology specific, fully shared and “mixed”). We propose that the presence of these separate mechanisms results in the models being sensitive to relatively small variations in specific numerical values. To address this sensitivity, we suggest a specific role for specific (sub)models or key choices to counter unrealistic model outcomes. To support our proposal we present a selection of simulations for aggregated world regions, and show how key results concerning quantities, prices and rents can be subject to considerable change depending on the precise definitions of resource endowments and the technology-specificity of the factors. For instance, depending on the adopted water heterogeneity level, outcomes can vary from relatively low-cost solutions to higher cost ones and can even reach infeasibility. In the main model discussed here (WTM) factor prices are exogenous, which also contributes to the overall numerical sensitivity of the model. All this affects to a large extent our interpretation of the water challenges, which preferably need to be assessed in integrated frameworks, to account for the main socioeco-nomic variables, technologies and resources

The Multiplicity of Madness: Ambiguity in Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse.

Este trabajo trata de analizar la película El Faro (2019), de Robert Eggers, y ofrecer una visión de sus múltiples interpretaciones. En concreto, analiza su valor como una película ambigua, que resiste que haya una única lectura sobre ella. Dicha ambigüedad se consigue proporcionando a la audiencia un entorno casi perteneciente a otro mundo y unos símbolos con diferentes connotaciones. Además, el descenso hacia la locura de los dos únicos y principales personajes también abre el debate de cuánto de lo que estamos viendo está sucediendo realmente. El Faro hace las veces de ensayo sobre el significado, la obsesión y la locura y hace que la audiencia se cuestione lo que está viendo y conoce con el fin de encontrar una respuesta a las preguntas que la propia película lanza. Al final, la belleza de la película surge de que todas sus posibles interpretaciones son al mismo tiempo válidas y no limitan la existencia del resto.<br /

Towards a more effective climate policy on international trade

In the literature on the attribution of responsibilities for greenhouse gas emissions, two accounting methods have been widely discussed: production-based accounting (PBA) and consumption-based accounting (CBA). It has been argued that an accounting framework for attributing responsibilities should credit actions contributing to reduce global emissions and should penalize actions increasing them. Neither PBA nor CBA satisfy this principle. Adapting classical Ricardian trade theory, we consider ex post measurement and propose a scheme for assigning credits and penalties. Their size is determined by how much CO2 emissions are saved globally due to trade. This leads to the emission responsibility allotment (ERA) for assigning responsibilities. We illustrate the differences between ERA and PBA and CBA by comparing their results for 41 countries and regions between 1995–2009. The Paris Agreement (COP21) proposed new market mechanisms; we argue that ERA is well suited to measure and evaluate their overall mitigation impact.</p

Downscaling the grey water footprints of production and consumption

While economic and environmental policies and strategies are largely designed at the international, national or regional level, the environmental impacts of these measures are often felt at a more geographically-localized level. In particular, the effects on water resources, especially regarding water pollution and water stress, are usually localized in very specific hotspots. In this work, we acknowledge these facts and attempt to identify the linkages among the 17 regions in Spain (a semi-arid country with significant geographical variations in water availability), the European Union (EU), and the Rest of the World (RW), while also looking at the local effects of those interactions. In particular, we study the grey water footprints (a measure of the assimilation capacity of water resources) of production, at both the regional and business level, with spatially explicit information, and the extension of those footprints throughout the supply chain, while also computing the water footprints of consumption at the regional level. This process is a combination of a detailed computation of grey water footprints from production, from agriculture (from diffuse pollution), and from more general economic activities (from point source pollution), with a multiregional input–output model that encompasses the 17 Spanish Regions, the EU, and the RW. We also identify hotspots and vulnerable areas, linking the grey water footprints from production originating in these areas to final-consumer responsibilities. As an example of the potential of the combined methodology, we design and evaluate the effects on grey water footprints of scenarios of import substitutions in Spain. Our results show strong final demand in regions such as Madrid and Catalonia, and in net exporting regions such as Andalusia, Aragon, Castile and Leon, Castile-La Mancha, Extremadura, and Navarre. Some of these regions contain areas that are clearly vulnerable to nitrates and other pollutants, and parts of these regions, most obviously in Andalusia and Extremadura, suffer water stress, which leads us to question the sustainability of the relationships between the structure of production and trade and the environment

Water and production reallocation in the Spanish agri-food system

Multiregional input–output (MRIO) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models have greatly facilitated approaches to environmental and economic problems in recent years. This paper examines regional reallocation criteria intended to reduce water constraints in the Spanish economy. Our goal is to assess the impact of alternative allocation scenarios for regional production on the country’s agriculture and agri-food industries, and the associated effects on water resources along the whole length of food supply chains, which display significant asymmetries between regions caused by imbalances in the availability of water resources. We design a CGE model using an MRIO database for Spain. Our scenarios are based on increases in the production of water-intensive crops in regions with more abundant water resources and the development of more sustainable food supply chains between farms and the agri-food industry. Our findings point to a series of policy options that could be applied to ensure successful outcomes in both directions

Nations' water footprints and virtual water trade of wood products

[EN] Several studies addressed the water footprint (WF) of countries and virtual water (VW) trade in agricultural and industrial products, but freshwater use associated with wood products has received little attention. Yet, international trade in wood products has been growing, and forestry competes with other forest ecosystem services over limited freshwater resources. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to assess nations' WFs of consumption of wood products, the sustainability of these WFs, and the VW flows associated with international trade in wood products. We account nations' WFs of and VW trade in wood products with a Multi-regional Input-Output model (MRIO-forest) that tracks wood flows along global supply chains (production, processing, trade, and final uses) for the period 1997-2017 and assess the sustainability of the green and blue WF of wood products in 2017. The WF of wood production increased from 8.37 x 1011 m(3)/y in 1997 to 9.87 x 1011 m(3)/y in 2017. About 38% (3.76 x 1011 m3/y) of this WF relates to wood products for export (in 2017), which means that VW trade associated with wood products ranks in between agricultural and industrial products in absolute volumes. About 10% (9.9 x 1010 m3/y) of the green WF and 11% (3.4 x 109 m3/y) of the blue WF of wood products in 2017 are unsustainable, meaning that they are located in areas where the total green/blue WF exceeds the maximum sustainable green/blue WF. The unsustainable green WF occurs mainly in Germany, Indonesia, the Czech Republic and the UK, and mainly relates to coniferous sawnwood, paper and paperboard other than newsprint, fibreboard and non-coniferous sawnwood. The unsustainable blue WF, which is much smaller, occurs in the USA, Russia. Nigeria, Canada and India, and mainly relates to fuelwood, paper and paperboard other than newsprint, sawnwood and fibreboard. This study increases our understanding of how forest evaporation flows link to the final consumption of wood products and contributes to the wider debate on the allocation of freshwater resources in the global economy.BC3 authors thank the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the project Modeling and analysis of low carbon transitions (MALCON, RTI2018-099858-A-I00), and the Spanish State Research Agency through María de Maeztu Excellence Unit accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/) and Basque Government BERC 2022-2025 Programme. I. Cazcarro thanks the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (State Research Agency. 2019 Call for R+D+i) PID2019-106822RB-I0 “Multisectoral and multiregional models, innovation and dynamics, for economic, social and environmental sustainability. J.F. Schyns was supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Earth@lternatives project, grant agreement No 834716). This article has been also a parallel study to one developed on land footprints under Letter of Agreement between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, UN-REDD Programme) and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3). BC3 authors thank the staff of the FAO and BC3 for their comments, discussions and suggestions related to forest data and policy. We are especially grateful to Malgorzata Buszko-Briggs and Tina Vahanen (FAO Forestry Department) for their contribution to frame and coordinate the research, and to Salar Tayyib, Daniela Di Filippo, Tomasz Filipczuk (FAO Statistics Division) and Arvydas Lebedys (FAO Forestry Department) for providing datasets and for their discussions and comments on data and methodological issues