Water footprints of nations: Water use by people as a function of their consumption pattern

Abstract

The water footprint shows the extent of water use in relation to consumption of people. The water footprint of a country is defined as the volume of water needed 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 calculates the water footprint for each nation of the world for the period 1997-2001. The USA appears to have an average water footprint of 2480 m 3 /cap/yr, while China has an average footprint of 700 m 3 /cap/yr. The global average water footprint is 1240 m 3 /cap/yr. The four major direct factors determining the water footprint of a country are: volume of consumption (related to the gross national income); consumption pattern (e.g. high versus low meat consumption); climate (growth conditions); and agricultural practice (water use efficiency).

Water Productivity in a Mediterranean Semi-Arid Greenhouse District

“…The use of these performance indicators together with benchmarking techniques and data envelopment analysis has proved to be a good tool for improving the water management in irrigation districts (Malano et al 2004;Rodríguez et al 2004;Córcoles et al 2012;Ali and Klein 2014). Other recent studies have introduced the concept of Bvirtual water^and Bwater footprint^and have applied these concepts for water planning and allocation at a regional scale (Hoekstra and Chapagain 2007;Aldaya et al 2010;Montesinos et al 2011;Su et al 2014) The purpose of this study is to evaluate the irrigation water productivity in a greenhouse irrigation district in the southeast of Spain with increasing problems regarding the irrigation water availability and quality (The BCampo de Níjar^area). This research work tries to fill the gap of irrigation performance and productivity assessment studies in Mediterranean greenhouse districts as there are few previous studies regarding this issue.…”

Fallow-land Algorithm based on Neighborhood and Temporal Anomalies (FANTA) to map planted versus fallowed croplands using MODIS data to assist in drought studies leading to water and food security assessments

“…Irrigation of cropland is the major consumer of human water use (Hoekstra and Chapagain 2007). Nowhere is this more exemplified than in the state of California, where over 80% of all human water use goes towards irrigating agricultural crops.…”

A framework for modelling the complexities of food and water security under globalisation

“…Computational general equilibrium (CGE) models capture socio-economic interdependencies across regions (Hertel, 1997). In the hydrological sciences, water footprint studies capture regional interdependence whilst socio-hydrological studies capture crossscale socio-hydrological interactions (Hoekstra and Chapagain, 2006;Sivapalan et al, 2012). However, to our knowledge, regional and sectoral interdependencies and cross-scale feedbacks associated with food and water security have not been captured in a single modelling framework.…”