There is an increasing demand for an interdisciplinary approach in teaching water management. Computer-supported games and role plays offer the potential of creating an environment in which different disciplines come together and in which students are challenged to develop integrated understanding. Two examples are discussed. The River Basin Game is a common-pool resource game in which participants experience the risk of over-abstractions of water in a river basin and learn how this risk relates to the complexity of the system, the conflict between individual and group optimums and the difficulty in achieving good cooperation. The Globalization of Water Role Play makes participants familiar with the global dimension of water management by letting them experience how national governments can integrate considerations of water scarcity and domestic water productivities into decisions on international trade in commodities like food, cotton and bio-energy. The two examples illustrate that play sessions inspire participants to think about the functioning of systems as a whole and to develop good cooperative courses of action, whereby both uncertainties about the system and the presence of different values and perspectives among participants play a role.
There is an increasing demand for an interdisciplinary approach in teaching water management. Computer-supported games and role plays offer the potential of creating an environment in which different disciplines come together and in which students are challenged to develop integrated understanding. Two examples are discussed. The River Basin Game is a common-pool resource game in which participants experience the risk of over-abstractions of water in a river basin and learn how this risk relates to the complexity of the system, the conflict between individual and group optimum and the difficulty to come to good cooperation. The Globalization of Water Role Play makes participants familiar with the global dimension of water management by letting them experience how national governments can integrate considerations of water scarcity and domestic water productivities into decisions on international trade in commodities like food, cotton and bio-energy. The two examples illustrate that plays inspire participants to think about the functioning of systems as a whole and to develop good cooperative courses of action, whereby both uncertainties about the system and the presence of different values and perspectives among participants play a role.
During the past few years the concept of the 'water footprint' has started to receive recognition within governments, non-governmental organizations, businesses and media as a useful indicator of water use. The increased interest in the water-footprint concept has prompted the question about what consumers and businesses can do to reduce their water footprint. 'Water neutrality' is a concept that can be instrumental in this context. The aim of this report is to critically discuss the water-neutral concept. It first discusses the waterfootprint concept, because water neutrality is all about reducing and offsetting the impacts of water footprints.
Traditionally river systems have been a source of economic prosperity, but also the cause of devastating floods. In the Netherlands centuries ago the first flood defence systems were constructed. Since the 1950s Dutch flood defence policy has been based on fixed standards for maximum allowable flood frequencies. With the growing population and increasing economic capital behind the dikes, the risk of economic damage and casualties has increased. During the past few years the insight has therefore grown that flood policy should be based on flood risk reduction. Flood risks can be reduced by reducing the flood frequency, but also by reducing the potential economic damage and number of casualties. In several national and international conferences scientists and politicians have reflected on the topic and there appears to be a widespread common notion on the necessity of flood risk policies. The discussion on how to implement the new thinking on risk management is still going on. During the NCRdays a workshop has been devoted to the practical and scientific questions and dilemmas in implementing flood risk strategies.
Where water problems extend beyond the borders of local communities, the catchment area or river basin is generally seen as the most appropriate unit for analysis, planning and institutional arrangements. In this paper it is argued that addressing water problems at the river basin level is not always sufficient. It is shown that a substantial part of today's water issues carries a (sub)continental or even global dimension, which urges for a governance approach that comprises coordination and institutional arrangements at a level above that of the river basin. This paper distinguishes and reviews nine developments that support this argument: • Local issues of water scarcity and flooding will be enhanced or weakened by human-induced global climate change. • Local problems of water pollution are often intrinsic to the structure of the global economy. • There is a growing presence of multinationals in the drinking water sector. • Several national governments are developing plans for large-scale inter-basin water transfers. • An increasing number of water-short countries seek to preserve their domestic water resources through the import of water in virtual form. • Global trade in water-intensive commodities offers the opportunity of global water saving if this trade is from countries with high to countries with low water productivity. • The water footprints of individual people are increasingly externalised to other parts of the world, so that many local water problems are strongly related to consumption elsewhere. • Some people around the world have comparatively high water footprints, which raises the question of whether this is fair and sustainable. • Due to its increasing scarcity and uneven distribution across the globe, water is gradually becoming a geopolitical resource, influencing the power of nations. The described developments raise the question of what kind of institutional arrangements could be developed to cope with the global dimension of water issues. A few possible directions are identified in an explorative analysis: an international protocol on full-cost water pricing, a water label for water-intensive products, a disposal tax on goods that will cause water pollution in their waste stage (to be used for pollution prevention and control), international nutrient housekeeping, minimum water rights, maximum allowable water footprints, and tradable water footprint permits.
Problems of freshwater scarcity and pollution are related to water use by farmers, industries and households. The term 'water users' has always been interpreted as 'those who apply water for some purpose'. As a result, governments responsible for water resources management have traditionally targeted their policies towards those water users. Recently, however, it has been shown that this approach is limited. Final consumers, retailers, traders and all sorts of businesses active along the supply chains of final consumer goods remain out of the scope of water policies. This is strange, given the fact that all water use in the world is ultimately linked to final consumption by consumers. It is therefore interesting to know the specific water requirements of various consumer goods, particularly for goods that are water-intensive, like food items, beverages, bio-energy and materials from natural fibres. This is relevant information for consumers, but also for retailers, traders and other businesses that play a central role in supplying those goods to the consumers. The aim of this report is to estimate the water use related to two products that are typical to Italian consumers: pasta and pizza margherita. We use the water footprint concept as a tool to quantify and localise this water use. The water footprint of a product is the volume of freshwater used to produce the product, measured at the place where the product was actually produced. It refers to the sum of the water use in the various steps of the production chain. Earlier studies showed that, when expressed per capita, Italy has one of the largest water footprints of the world, together with other South European countries and the US. The water footprint of the average Italian is 2330 m3/yr, while the global average amounts to 1240 m3/yr. This study shows that the water footprint of dry pasta made in Italy amounts to 1924 litres of water per kilogram of pasta. The water footprint of one pizza margherita – assuming a total pizza weight of 725 gram – is 1216 litres of water. The impact of the water footprints of pasta and pizza depends on the vulnerability of the water systems where the water footprints are located. The impact of the water footprint of pasta is most severe in Puglia and Sicily, where groundwater overexploitation for durum wheat irrigation is common. The impact of the water footprint of pizza is more diverse. It is concentrated in the first step of the supply-chain of tomato puree and mozzarella, i.e. in the cultivation of tomatoes and the feed crops of dairy cows. The bread wheat used for the pizza base does not have large impacts. The water footprint impact of the tomato puree on the pizza is concentrated in Puglia (groundwater overexploitation and pollution related to tomato cultivation) and Emilia-Romagna (water pollution). The water footprint impact of mozzarella lies mostly in the effects of water use for producing the feed ingredients for the dairy cows. Mozzarella production further poses a potential threat to water quality, mostly in the Po valley, but this problem seems to be properly regulated, although possibly not fully controlled.
This report aims to identify the current state of business water accounting and to design an accounting method for the business water footprint (BWF). It answers the following questions: (i) What are the main developments in sustainable business performance so far? (ii) What is the current state of business water accounting? (iii) How to design an accounting method for the business water footprint? And (iv) How to apply the method for existing situations? The term "business" is interpreted in this study in a broad sense, in order to include any form of enterprise, governmental or non-governmental organization or other form of business activity. Based on the methodology of the WF concept, this report designs an accounting method for the BWF. The method calculates the BWF per business unit, where a business unit is preferably a part of the business that produces one homogenous product (good or service) at one particular spot. The WF of a business unit is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used, directly and indirectly, to produce the goods and services delivered by that unit expressed in terms of the volume of freshwater use per year. The WF of a business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used directly or indirectly to run and support the business.
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.
Previous studies into the relation between human consumption and indirect water resources use have unveiled the remote connections in virtual water (VW) trade networks, which show how communities externalize their water footprint (WF) to places far beyond their own region, but little has been done to understand variability in time. This study quantifies the effect of inter-annual variability of consumption, production, trade and climate on WF and VW trade, using China over the period 1978–2008 as a case study. Evapotranspiration, crop yields and green and blue WFs of crops are estimated at a 5 × 5 arc-minute resolution for 22 crops, for each year in the study period, thus accounting for climate variability. The results show that crop yield improvements during the study period helped to reduce the national average WF of crop consumption per capita by 23%, with a decreasing contribution to the total from cereals and increasing contribution from oil crops. The total consumptive WFs of national crop consumption and crop production, however, grew by 6% and 7%, respectively. By 2008, 28% of total water consumption in crop fields in China served the production of crops for export to other regions and, on average, 35% of the crop-related WF of a Chinese consumer was outside its own province. Historically, the net VW within China was from the water-rich South to the water-scarce North, but intensifying North-to-South crop trade reversed the net VW flow since 2000, which amounted 6% of North's WF of crop production in 2008. South China thus gradually became dependent on food supply from the water-scarce North. Besides, during the whole study period, China's domestic inter-regional VW flows went dominantly from areas with a relatively large to areas with a relatively small blue WF per unit of crop, which in 2008 resulted in a trade-related blue water loss of 7% of the national total blue WF of crop production. The case of China shows that domestic trade, as governed by economics and governmental policies rather than by regional differences in water endowments, determines inter-regional water dependencies and may worsen rather than relieve the water scarcity in a country.
Food aid is a critical component of the global food system, particularly when emergency situations arise. For the first time, we evaluate the water footprint of food aid. To do this, we draw on food aid data from theWorld Food Programme and virtual water content estimates from WaterStat. We find that the total water footprint of food aid was 10 km3 in 2005, which represents approximately 0.5% of the water footprint of food trade and 2.0% of the water footprint of land grabbing (i.e., water appropriation associated with large agricultural land deals). The United States is by far the largest food aid donor and contributes 82% of the water footprint of food aid. The countries that receive the most water embodied in aid are Ethiopia, Sudan, North Korea, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Notably, we find that there is significant overlap between countries that receive food aid and those that have their land grabbed. Multivariate regression results indicate that donor water footprints are driven by political and environmental variables, whereas recipient water footprints are driven by land grabbing and food indicators.
Kenya's cut-flower industry has been praised as an economic success as it contributed an annual average of US$ 141 million foreign exchange (7% of Kenyan export value) over the period 1996–2005 and about US$ 352 million in 2005 alone. The industry also provides employment, income and infrastructure such as schools and hospitals for a large population around Lake Naivasha. On the other hand, the commercial farms have been blamed for causing a drop in the lake level, polluting the lake and for possibly affecting the lake's biodiversity. The objective of this study is to quantify the water footprint within the Lake Naivasha Basin related to cut flowers and analyse the possibility to mitigate this footprint by involving cut-flower traders, retailers and consumers overseas. The water footprint of one rose flower is estimated to be 7–13 litres. The total virtual water export related to export of cut flowers from the Lake Naivasha Basin was 16 Mm3/yr during the period 1996–2005 (22 % green water; 45 % blue water; 33 % grey water). Our findings show that, although the decline in the lake level can be attributed mainly to the commercial farms around the lake, both the commercial farms and the smallholder farms in the upper catchment are responsible for the lake pollution due to nutrient load. The observed decline in the lake level and deterioration of the lake's biodiversity calls for sustainable management of the basin through pricing water at its full cost and other regulatory measures. Pricing water at full marginal cost is important, but the conditions in Kenya are unlikely to result in serious steps to full-cost pricing, since many farmers resist even modest water price increases and government is lacking means of enforcement. We propose an alternative in this study that can be implemented with a focus on sustainable water use in flower farming around Lake Naivasha alone. The proposal involves a water-sustainability agreement between major agents along the cut-flower supply chain and includes a premium to the final product at the retailer end of the supply chain. Such a 'water sustainability premium' will raise awareness among flower consumers and—when channelled back to the farmers—facilitate the flower farms to install the necessary equipment and implement the right measures to use water in a sustainable manner. The collected premiums will generate a fund that can be used for financing measures to reduce the water footprint and to improve watershed management
The hydrology of the Aral Sea Basin during the past few decades has been largely determined by the decision to develop irrigated agriculture on a large scale to produce cotton for export in the 1960s. The irrigated area has grown to 8 million hectares, using practically the entire available flow of the two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. Almost two decades after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the five states of the Aral Sea Basin face the challenge of restoring a sustainable equilibrium while offering development opportunities for an increasing population. Sustainable water management is thus an imperative that will require coordinated political action of all the states involved. The Soviet Union established its cotton-producing areas in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Today, while cotton remains relatively important, cereal production to reduce imports has become a priority in all four nations. The cotton crop area has decreased over the past ten years, while that of winter wheat – the main grain crop – has doubled. At 39 per cent of the total (blue and green) water consumption in agriculture, wheat is the largest water-consuming crop in the five basin states, followed by cotton at 33 per cent. The present study analyses the water footprint of Central Asian cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and rice (Oryza sativa L.) production, differentiating between the green and blue components, in order to know how the scarce water resources in the region are apparently allocated.
Community welfare and food security in Indonesia partly depend on developments in the agricultural sector. This sector increasingly faces the problem of water scarcity caused by declining water resources and increasing competition over water with households and industries. To overcome these problems and to ensure stability, economic growth and food security, it has been recognised that the government has to reform the water policy in Indonesia. Water policies are most of the time based on the water withdrawal per sector. A useful addition to this are the concepts of water footprint and virtual water trade. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use. The water footprint of the people in a province is defined as the total amount of water that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of the province. This water footprint is partly inside the province itself (the internal footprint) and partly presses somewhere else (external footprint). Virtual-water trade refers to the transfer of water in virtual form from one place to another as a result of product trade. Virtual water refers to the volume of freshwater embedded in a product, not in real but virtual sense; it refers to the water that was used to make the product. Quantitative information about the water footprint per province and interprovincial virtual water flows can feed a discussion on the role of trade in water resources management. The aim of this report is to quantify interprovincial virtual water flows related to trade in crop products and determine the water footprint related to the consumption of crop products per Indonesian province.
This study quantifies the external water footprint of the Netherlands by partner country and import product and assesses the impact of this footprint by contrasting the geographically explicit water footprint with water scarcity in the different parts of the world. Hotspots are identified as the places where the external water footprint of Dutch consumers is significant on the one hand and where water scarcity is serious on the other hand. The study shows that Dutch consumption implies the use of water resources throughout the world, with significant impacts at specified locations. This knowledge is relevant for consumers, government and businesses when addressing the sustainability of consumer behaviour and supply chains. The results of this study can be an input to bilateral cooperation between the Netherlands and the Dutch trade partners aimed at the reduction of the negative impacts of Dutch consumption on foreign water resources. Dutch government can also engage with businesses in order to stimulate them to review the sustainability of their supply chains.
