Summary Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater resources – around 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals are used for food production. These agricultural products are traded internationally. A full understanding of water use is, therefore, impossible without understanding the international market for food and related products, such as textiles. Based on the global general equilibrium model GTAP-W, we offer a method for investigating the role of green (rain) and blue (irrigation) water resources in agriculture and within the context of international trade. We use future projections of allowable water withdrawals for surface water and groundwater to define two alternative water management scenarios. The first scenario explores a deterioration of current trends and policies in the water sector (water crisis scenario). The second scenario assumes an improvement in policies and trends in the water sector and eliminates groundwater overdraft world-wide, increasing water allocation for the environment (sustainable water use scenario). In both scenarios, welfare gains or losses are not only associated with changes in agricultural water consumption. Under the water crisis scenario, welfare not only rises for regions where water consumption increases (China, South East Asia and the USA). Welfare gains are considerable for Japan and South Korea, Southeast Asia and Western Europe as well. These regions benefit from higher levels of irrigated production and lower food prices. Alternatively, under the sustainable water use scenario, welfare losses not only affect regions where overdrafting is occurring. Welfare decreases in other regions as well. These results indicate that, for water use, there is a clear trade-off between economic welfare and environmental sustainability.

The Economic Impact of More Sustainable Water Use in Agriculture: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

Textiles are essential to humans in a variety of ways, especially clothing. However, the speed at which they end up in landfills is astonishing (one garbage truck per second), posing a severe risk to the environment, if the trend continues. Governments and responsible organizations are starting to make calls to different stakeholders to redesign the textile chain from linear to circular economy. In this perspective, we highlight some of the possible approaches to be undertaken including the need for the creation of renewable raw materials sources, rethinking production, maximum use and reuse of textile products, reproduction, and recycling strategies, redistribution of textiles to new and parallel markets, and improvising means to extend the textiles lifetime.

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Circular Economy and Sustainability of the Clothing and Textile Industry

Water use efficiency (WUE) improvements in agricultural production are of great significance to regional food security and ecological sustainability. Based on modified water footprint (WF) calculations for corn cultivation in China, WUE indices of water productivity (WP) and water efficiency (WE) for production capacity and the effective ratio of water resources were developed and quantified in the current study. Approaches to achieving national productive and effective improvements concurrently were sought by determining the spatial-temporal patterns and determinants of WP and WE during 1996–2015. The results show that the annual crop WF was estimated at 197.3 m³, including 14.1 % blue, 62.4 % green and 23.4 % gray components. WP and WE were calculated as 0.781 kg/m³ and 0.687, respectively, both of which increased over time in all subregions. Both WP and WE showed obvious spatial differences in the observed period. Low-value provinces were concentrated in the northwest and on the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, and most high-value regions were distributed in the southeastern coastal zone. Agricultural production technology improvements contributed to WF reductions in specific areas, while meteorological elements and planting structure were the main factors affecting the spatial distribution of WP and WE. WF suppression in northwestern China and expansion of the production scale in southern China were conducive to increasing productive and effective agricultural water resource use in corn cultivation nationally. Agricultural production technology progress and crop spatial arrangement optimization are equally important to agricultural WUE enhancement in the WF framework.

Agricultural Water Use Efficiency and Driving Force Assessment to Improve Regional Productivity and Effectiveness

Considering that 4 billion people are living in water-stressed regions and that global water consumption is predicted to increase continuously [...]

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/6/803/pdf

Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: The Complementary Strengths of Analyzing Global Freshwater Appropriation and Resulting Local Impacts

A framework assessing the footprints of food consumption. An application on water footprint in Europe

The water footprint has developed into a widely-used concept to examine water use and resulting local impacts caused during agricultural and industrial production. Building on recent advancements in the water footprint concept, it can be an effective steering instrument to support, inter alia, achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) - SDG 6 in particular. Within the research program “Water as a Global Resource” (GRoW), an initiative of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research, a number of research projects currently apply and enhance the water footprint concept in order to identify areas where water is being used inefficiently and implement practical optimization measures (see imprint for more information). With this paper, we aim to raise awareness on the potential of the water footprint concept to inform decision-making in the public and private sectors towards improved water management and achieving the SDGs.

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Advancing the Water Footprint into an Instrument to Support Achieving the SDGs – Recommendations from the “Water as a Global Resources” Research Initiative (GRoW)

Water sustainability is central to modern political and academic debates. Despite increasing efforts to promote regional and global integrated water management, climate change, population, and econ...

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Ianna Dantas

Papers

Advancing the Water Footprint into an Instrument to Support Achieving the SDGs – Recommendations from the “Water as a Global Resources” Research Initiative (GRoW)

Economic Research on the Global Allocation of Scarce Water Resources Needs Better Data