Description
Virtual Water explores the role of "virtual water" – the water embedded in a product – in ongoing conversations of agriculture, trade and sustainability in an increasingly inter-connected world.
A pervasive theme throughout the book is the general lack of knowledge of the use of water in producing and consuming food. The chapters, arising from a workshop supported by the OECD Co-operative Research Programme: Biological Resources Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems, on virtual water, agriculture and trade at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, consider questions of gaps in knowledge, why sustainability matters and the policy implications of virtual water trade. Contributors show how water is a lens through which to examine an array of vital issues facing humanity and the planet: human and animal health; food production; environmental management; resource consumption; climate change adaptation and mitigation; economic development, trade and competitiveness; and ethics and consumer trust.
Virtual Water will be of great interest to scholars of water, resource management and consumption, the environmental aspects of development, agriculture and food production.
It originally published as a special issue of Water International.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Virtual water: its implications on agriculture and trade
Chittaranjan Ray, David McInnes and Matthew Sanderson
1. The water footprint of the EU: quantification, sustainability and relevance
Davy Vanham
2. The exposure of a fresh fruit and vegetable supply chain to global water-related risks
Tim Hess and Chloe Sutcliffe
3. Advising Morocco: adopting recommendations of a water footprint assessment would increase risk and impair food security for the country and its farmers
Dennis Wichelns
4. Future crop yields and water productivity changes for Nebraska rainfed and irrigated crops
Yaqiong Lu, Xianyu Yang and Lara Kueppers
5. Can Sub-Saharan Africa feed itself? The role of irrigation development in the region’s drylands for food security
Hua Xie, Nicostrato Perez, Weston Anderson, Claudia Ringler and Liangzhi You
6. Sustainability of aquifers supporting irrigated agriculture: a case study of the High Plains aquifer in Kansas
James J. Butler, Donald O. Whittemore, B. Brownie Wilson and Geoffrey C. Bohling
7. Irrigation variability and climate change affect derived distributions of simulated water recharge and nitrate leaching
Timothy R. Green and Saseendran S. Anapalli
8. The water footprint challenge for water resources management in Chilean arid zones
Pablo Álvarez
9. The effect of diet changes and food loss reduction in reducing the water footprint of an average American
Mesfin M. Mekonnen and Julian Fulton
10. Water footprint for Korean rice products and virtual water trade in a water-energy-food nexus
Sang-Hyun Lee, Jin-Yong Choi, Seung-Hwan Yoo and Rabi H. Mohtar
11. Water footprint of beef production on Texas High Plains pasture
Charles P. West and Lisa L. Baxter
12. Tradeoffs in the water-energy- food nexus in the urbanizing Asia-Pacific region
Makoto Taniguchi, Naoki Masuhara and Shun Teramoto
