Rethinking the Concepts of Virtual Water and Water Footprint in Relation to the Production-Consumption Binomial and the Water-Energy Nexus

In the field of Ecological Economics, the need of using physical indicators to analyse economic processes, at the same time they serve as tools in decision making, has been lately highlighted. Virtual Water (VW) and Water Footprint (WF) are two useful indicators in achieving this objective, the firs...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources management 2011, Vol.25 (2), p.743-761
Main Authors: Velázquez, Esther, Madrid, Cristina, Beltrán, María J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric Sciences
Binomials
Civil Engineering
Consumption
Decision making
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Ecological monitoring
Economics
Environment
Environmental economics
Exact sciences and technology
Footprints
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Hydrogeology
Hydrology. Hydrogeology
Hydrology/Water Resources
Hypotheses
Indicators
Literature reviews
Resource management
Studies
virtual water
Water and energy nexus
Water consumption
water footprint
Water management
Water resources
Water resources management
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Summary:In the field of Ecological Economics, the need of using physical indicators to analyse economic processes, at the same time they serve as tools in decision making, has been lately highlighted. Virtual Water (VW) and Water Footprint (WF) are two useful indicators in achieving this objective, the first one from the perspective of production, the second one from that of consumption. This difference between them is interesting inasmuch as it allows to identify the subjects who are responsible for water consumption, whether producers or consumers, and proves both indicators' potential when designing water management policies. In this work, we consider a hypothesis according to which there is a clear difference between the two concepts--Virtual Water and Water Footprint--and this difference, although evident in their respective conceptualizations, is not reflected in their estimations and applications. This is true to the point that the two concepts are often used as synonyms, thus wasting the enormous potential associated to their difference. Starting from this hypothesis, our objective is, first of all, to highlight this evident but ignored difference between VW and WF through a deep and thorough literature review of the conceptual definitions and contributions, the methodologies developed and the applications made regarding the two concepts. Second, we intend to make a conceptual and methodological proposition aimed at underlining the differences already mentioned and to identify responsibilities in water consumption. We do it by broadening the context of analysis and by integrating the production-consumption binomial and water-energy nexus.
ISSN:0920-4741
1573-1650
DOI:10.1007/s11269-010-9724-7