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Blue water footprint linked to national consumption and international trade is unsustainable

Nature Food volume 1, pages 792–800 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Increasing pressure on the world’s freshwater resources raises serious concerns about global food security and the sustainability of water use in agriculture. Here we quantify and map at a 5-arcmin spatial resolution the blue water footprint of each country’s national consumption and where they infringe sustainable environmental flows as defined by the presumptive environmental flow standard or the 80% rule, in which runoff depletion by more than 20% will pose risk to ecosystems. We find that 52% of the blue water footprint of global consumption and 43% of international blue virtual water flows come from places where the sustainable environmental flow is violated. About 22% of the environmental flow infringement of the blue water footprint of global consumption lies outside the specific countries of consumption, indicating that a number of them have externalized their impacts. By establishing a link between the consumption of a product in one place and water scarcity in places far from the place of consumption, our assessment may aid a dialogue on how to assign and share responsibilities concerning water use.

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Fig. 1: Relative contribution of countries to the total EFR-infringing blue WF of global consumption.
Fig. 2: Global blue WF associated with national consumption for selected countries.
Fig. 3: EFR-infringing blue virtual water flows between regions of the world.

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Data availability

Most of the data used in this study are available through the WaterStat Database of the Water Footprint Network (https://waterfootprint.org/en/resources/waterstat/). The other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The Python code used to automate the calculation of the EFR-infringing blue WF in the ArcGIS environment is available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

I dedicate this article to my esteemed mentor and co-author Prof. Arjen Y. Hoekstra (1967–2019), who died suddenly before its publication.

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  1. Deceased: Arjen Y. Hoekstra.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Mesfin M. Mekonnen

  2. Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Mesfin M. Mekonnen

  3. Twente Water Center, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Arjen Y. Hoekstra

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M.M.M. and A.Y.H. designed the study. M.M.M. performed research and analysed data. M.M.M. and A.Y.H. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mesfin M. Mekonnen.

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Mekonnen, M.M., Hoekstra, A.Y. Blue water footprint linked to national consumption and international trade is unsustainable. Nat Food 1, 792–800 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-00198-1

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