Globalization of Water E-Book

Arjen Y. Hoekstra

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 242

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Globalization of Water is a first-of-its-kind review of the critical relationship between globalization and sustainable water management. It explores the impact of international trade on local water depletion and pollution and identifies “water dependent” nations.

• Examines the critical link between water management and international trade, considering how local water depletion and pollution are often closely tied to the structure of the global economy
• Offers a consumer-based indicator of each nation’s water use: the water footprint
• Questions whether trade can enhance global water use efficiency, or whether it simply shifts the environmental burden to a distant location
• Highlights the hidden link between national consumption and the use of water resources across the globe, identifying the threats facing ‘water dependent’ countries worldwide
• Provides a state-of-the-art review and in-depth data source for a new field of knowledge

Leseprobe

Contents

List of Maps

Preface

1 Introduction

2 How Much Water is Used for Producing our Goods and Services?

Virtual Water

How to Estimate the Virtual-Water Content of an Agricultural Product

Water Use for Crop and Livestock Products

Water Use for Industrial Products

Water for Domestic Services

3 Virtual-Water Flows Between Nations as a Result of Trade in Agricultural and Industrial Products

Virtual-Water “Trade” or “Transfer”?

How to Assess International Virtual-Water Flows

International Virtual-Water Flows

Virtual-Water Flows Between World Regions

Are Consumers Co-Responsible for the Effects of Water Use?

The Relation Between Trade and Water Scarcity

4 Water Saving Through International Trade in Agricultural Products

Method

National Water Savings

National Water Losses

Global Water Savings

Global Blue Water Savings at the Cost of Green Water Losses

Physical versus Economic Savings

The Downside of Virtual-Water Import as a Solution to Water Scarcity

5 The Water Footprints of Nations

Two Methods of Assessing the Water Footprint of a Nation

Internal and External

Water Footprint Water Footprints of Nations

Determining Factors

How can Water Footprints be Reduced?

The Water Footprint as a New Indicator of Water Use

6 The Water Footprints of Morocco and the Netherlands

Virtual-Water Flows and Balances

Agricultural Water Footprints of Morocco and the Netherlands

Water Savings

Trade in the Context of Managing Water

7 Virtual- versus Real-Water Transfers Within China

Assessing Virtual-Water Flows Between Regions in China

Virtual-Water Content per Product Category per Region

Food Trade Within China

Virtual-Water Transfers Within China

Virtual- versus Real-Water Budgets

Virtual-Water Transfers in Relation to Water Availability

North–South Virtual-Water Flows in Relation to the South–North Water Transfer Project

8 The Water Footprint of Coffee and Tea Consumption

Virtual-Water Content of Coffee and Tea in Different Production Stages

Virtual-Water Flows Related to the Trade in Coffee and Tea

The Water Needed to Drink a Cup of Coffee or Tea

The Water Footprint of Coffee and Tea Consumption

9 The Water Footprint of Cotton Consumption Green, Blue, and Gray Water

The Virtual-Water Content of Seed Cotton

The Virtual-Water Content of Cotton Products Impact on Water Quality in the Crop Production Stage

Impact on Water Quality in the Processing Stage

International Virtual-Water Flows

Water Footprints Related to Consumption of Cotton Products

Sustainable Use of Water

10 Water as a Geopolitical Resource

11 Efficient, Sustainable, and Equitable Water Use in a Globalized World

Fairness and Sustainability of Large Water Footprints

Global Rules of the Game

An International Protocol on Water Pricing

A Water Label for Water-Intensive Products

Minimum Water Rights

(Tradable) Water-Footprint Permits

Global Arrangements versus the Subsidiarity Principle

Globalization: Pro or Anti?

Appendices

I Analytical Framework for the Assessment of Virtual-Water Content, Virtual-Water Flows, Water Savings, Water Footprints, and Water Dependencies

II Virtual-Water Flows per Country Related to International Trade in Crop, Livestock, and Industrial Products

III National Water Savings and Losses Due to Trade in Agricultural Products

IV Water Footprints of Nations

V Water Footprint versus Water Scarcity, Self-Sufficiency, and Water Import Dependency per Country

Glossary

References

Index

© 2008 Arjen Y. Hoekstra and Ashok K. Chapagain

blackwell publishing

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First published 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

1 2008

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hoekstra, Arjen Y., 1967–Globalization of water: sharing the planet’s freshwater resources / by Arjen Y. Hoekstra and Ashok K. Chapagain. p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-1-4051-6335-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Water-supply—Management. 2. Water resources development. 3. Freshwater ecology. I. Chapagain, Ashok K. II. Title.TD345.H54 2008333.91—dc222007025137

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards.

List of Maps

The plates will be found between pages 84 and 85.

Map 1.Virtual-water balance per country over the period 1997–2001.Map 2.Regional virtual-water balances and net inter-regional virtual-water flows related to trade in agricultural products.Map 3.National water savings related to international trade in agricultural products.Map 4.National water losses related to international trade in agricultural products.Map 5.Global water savings associated with international trade in agricultural products.Map 6.Global water savings associated with international trade in wheat.Map 7.Global water savings associated with international trade in maize.Map 8.Global water savings associated with international trade in rice.Map 9.Average water footprint per capita per country.Map 10.The global water footprint of the people of Morocco (insofar as related to the consumption of agricultural products).Map 11.The global water footprint of the people of the Netherlands (insofar as related to the consumption of agricultural products).Map 12.Import of water in virtual form into the Netherlands related to coffee imports.Map 13.The impact of consumption of cotton products by US citizens on the world’s water resources.Map 14.The impact of consumption of cotton products by Japanese citizens on the world’s water resources.Map 15.The impact of consumption of cotton products by the people of the 25 countries of the European Union on the world’s water resources.

Preface

It looks as if the same politicians, academics, and activists who from the late 1980s gathered around the topic of “sustainable development” have since the late 1990s started to organize themselves around the topic of “globalization.” Many of the concerns in the debate about sustainability remain valid in the current discourse about globalization. Major themes are still the balance between economic growth and preserving our environment, security of livelihoods, and equity among people and generations. The new element in the current discourse on globalization is the recognition that the ever-increasing material and cultural exchange between people in different parts of the world and the growing mobility of business make sustainable development a true global challenge. In the past few years thousands of papers and hundreds of books have been written about globalization (Lechner and Boli, 2004). The current book focuses on the effects of globalization on water resources management, a topic that has surprisingly not been much addressed before. This is the first book on the subject. It is true that many valuable books have been published about so-called “global water problems,” but the term “global” in these books essentially refers to the fact that the problems described occur all over the world. “Global” is used in these publications in the meaning of “widespread.” Problems of water scarcity, water pollution, and flooding are indeed common. However, previously available texts have described the problems in essence from a local, national, or river basin perspective. By contrast, the current volume shows that water problems are often caused by mechanisms that can be understood only at a level far beyond that of the river basin. We will show that local water depletion and pollution are often closely linked to the structure of the global economy. We are convinced that many of today’s water problems cannot be solved at river basin level, because they are inextricably bound up with the processes that determine where in the world agricultural and industrial production take place and with the written and unwritten rules of global trade. We hope that this book contributes to the reader’s understanding of how wise use of water is linked up with how we organize our global society.

We started our research on the “globalization of water” in 2002 and along the way have received help from many of our students. We would like to thank Pham Quoc Hung from Vietnam for his explorative work on quantifying world trade in water in virtual form. We thank Anat Yegnes-Botzer from Israel for carrying out an interesting case study for Israel, and Zhang Dunquiang and Jing Ma, both from China, for doing two different case studies on virtual-water transfer between provinces within China. We would like to thank Xiuying Dong from China and Mesfin Mergia Mekonnen from Ethiopia for their work on developing a computer tool to assess one’s individual water footprint. We also thank Abbas Badawi Ashmage Iglal from Sudan and Thewodros Mulugeta Gebre from Ethiopia who carried out joint research on current and future virtual-water flows in the Nile basin. Finally, we thank Rajani Gautam from Nepal for her valuable study on cotton.

We are grateful to all the experts present at the productive International Expert Meeting on Virtual Water Trade held at UNESCOIHE in the Netherlands in December 2002 (Hoekstra, 2003). We would like to mention in particular Tony Allan, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, who invented the term “virtual water” and whose work inspired us to explore this field. We are also grateful to Huub Savenije, professor at UNESCO-IHE and the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, who has been one of the few who have seen from the beginning that “globalization of water” will become an important theme and has supported us throughout our work with his stimulating ideas.

We thank the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands for providing financial support for part of our research for this book. We would like to thank in particular Ton Bresser, who has shown a continuing interest in our work. We are grateful to Oxfam Novib for sponsoring the case study on coffee and tea. Finally, we thank the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education and University of Twente for facilitating the research.

When drafting this book we have made use of a number of our earlier publications. Part of the value of this book is that it brings together all the disparate publications into one coherent structure. When writing Chapters 2, 3, and 5 we have drawn most heavily on a report published by UNESCO-IHE (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2004), Chapagain’s PhD thesis (Chapagain, 2006), and two papers, published in Water Resources Management (Hoekstra and Chapagain, 2007a) and Water International (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2007a). Chapter 4 builds on a paper that appeared in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (Chapagain et al., 2006a). Chapter 6 is based on a paper presented at a water conference on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of relations between Morocco and the Netherlands, held in Marrakech in November 2005 (Hoekstra and Chapagain, 2007b). Chapter 7 on China builds on an article with Jing Ma (Ma et al., 2006) published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, which as we learned is the world’s longest-running scientific journal, having appeared since March 1665. Chapter 8 on coffee and tea is based on a paper published in Ecological Economics (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2007b). Chapter 9 on cotton draws upon another paper published in Ecological Economics (Chapagain et al., 2006b). Finally, Chapters 10 and 11 are based on a paper presented at a meeting of the Global Water System Project in Bonn in June 2006 (Hoekstra, 2006). Unless mentioned otherwise, the data presented in this book refer to averages for the period 1997–2001.

Arjen Y. Hoekstra Enschede, The Netherlands

Ashok K. Chapagain Kathmandu, Nepal

Chapter 1

Introduction

In the world of today, people in Japan indirectly affect the hydro-logical system in the USA and people in Europe indirectly impact on the regional water systems in Brazil. When you ask somebody how this can happen, the reply will most probably be: through climate change. This answer is likely because much has been reported about the expected effects of past and ongoing local emissions of greenhouse gases on future global temperature, evaporation, and precipitation patterns. Most people are aware that local emissions of greenhouse gases contribute to global climate change and can thus indirectly affect other locations. Little is known, however, about a second mechanism through which people affect water systems in other parts of the world. This second mechanism, which is as “invisible” as climate change but which is today already much more significant, is global trade. International trade in agricultural and industrial commodities creates a link between the demand for water-intensive commodities (notably crops) in countries like Japan, Italy, Germany, and the UK and the water use for production of these commodities in countries such as the USA and Brazil. Water use for producing export commodities for the global market significantly contributes to changes in local water systems. By buying crop products imported from the USA, Japanese consumers put pressure on the water resources of the latter, contributing to the mining of aquifers and emptying of rivers in North America. Well-documented examples are the mined Ogallala Aquifer and emptied Colorado River. European consumers contribute to a significant degree to the water demand in Brazil by buying water-intensive crop and livestock products imported from this country. Well known is the ongoing deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest with its implications for biodiversity, erosion, and runoff.

Though consensus seems to exist that the river basin is the appropriate unit for analyzing freshwater availability and use, in this book we argue that it is becoming increasingly important to put freshwater issues in a global context. Although other authors have already argued thus (Postel et al., 1996; Vo¨ro¨smarty et al., 2000), we add a new dimension to the argument. International trade in commodities implies long-distance transfers of water in virtual form, where virtual water is understood as the volume of water that has been used to produce a commodity and that is thus virtually embedded in it (Allan, 1998b). Knowledge about the virtual-water flows entering and leaving a country can cast a completely new light on the actual water scarcity of a country. For example, Jordan imports about 5 to 7 billion m3 of virtual water per year, which is in sharp contrast with the 1 billion m3 of water withdrawn annually from domestic water sources (Haddadin, 2003; Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2004). This means that people in Jordan apparently survive owing to the import of water-intensive commodities from elsewhere, for example the USA. Jordan’s water shortage is largely covered up by intelligent trade: export of goods and services that require little water and import of products that need a lot of water. The positive side of Jordan’s trade balance is that it preserves the scarce domestic water resources; the negative side is that the people are heavily “water dependent.” A different case is Egypt, a country which has not been willing to become water dependent and in which water self-sufficiency is high on the political agenda. However, with a total water withdrawal inside the country of 65billion m3/yr, Egypt still has an estimated net virtual-water import of 10 to 20billion m3/yr (Yang and Zehnder, 2002; Zimmer and Renault, 2003; Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2004). This means that even Egypt’s water balance is not immune to its pattern of international trade. In fact, there exist no countries in the world where the pattern of trade does not influence the pattern of domestic water use. Developing national water policies without explicitly considering the implications of international trade thus seems to be injudicious. Nevertheless, this is the common practice. In addition, formulating foreign trade policies in water-scarce countries without explicit consideration of domestic water resource availability would seem to be inadvisable as well. Yet, this is what generally happens.

In this book we address questions such as: Is it efficient to import water in virtual form if domestic water resources are scarce? And what are the implications of importing virtual water in terms of the resulting “water dependency”? But once we enter the area of “water and international trade” other questions also arise. If water-intensive products are imported from a distant location, the negative impacts of water use in the area of production will remain invisible for the consumer. Together with the fact that usually only a small fraction of the full cost of water use is included in the price of products, there is little incentive for consumers to change their consumption behavior or otherwise contribute to the mitigation of distant water problems. Thus new questions come up: What are the invisible tele-connections between intensive consumption of water-intensive products in some places on earth and the impacts of water use in other places? And does international trade in water-intensive commodities contribute to the unrestricted growth of consumption of water-intensive products in a world where water becomes increasingly scarce? In order to address these sorts of questions, we use in this book a number of novel concepts such as the “virtual-water content” of a commodity, the “water footprint” of a nation, and the “water saving” as a result of international trade. Let us introduce and explain these concepts one by one.

The virtual-water concept was introduced by Allan (1998a,b, 1999a,b, 2001) when he studied the possibility of importing virtual water (as opposed to real water) as a partial solution to problems of water scarcity in the Middle East. Allan elaborated the idea of using virtual-water import (coming along with food imports) as a tool to release the pressure on scarcely available domestic water resources. Virtual-water import thus becomes an alternative water source, alongside endogenous water sources. Imported virtual water has therefore also been called “exogenous water” (Haddadin, 2003).

The water-footprint concept was introduced by Hoekstra and Hung (2002) when they were looking for an indicator that could map the impact of human consumption on global freshwater resources. The concept was subsequently elaborated by the authors of this book (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2004; Hoekstra and Chapagain, 2007a). The water footprint shows water use related to consumption within a nation, while the traditional indicator shows water use in relation to production within a nation. Traditionally, national water use has been measured as the total freshwater withdrawal for the various sectors of the economy. By contrast, the water footprint shows not only freshwater use within the country considered, but also freshwater use outside the country’s borders. It refers to all forms of freshwater use that contribute to the production of goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of a certain country. The water footprint of the Dutch community, for example, also refers to the use of water for rice production in Thailand (insofar as the rice is exported to the Netherlands for consumption there). Conversely, the water footprint of a nation excludes water that is used within the national territory for producing commodities for export, which are consumed elsewhere.

The water footprint of a nation consists of three components: blue, green, and gray components. The terms blue and green refer to the source of the water (Falkenmark, 2003). Green water use refers to the use of rainwater, while blue water use refers to use of ground-or surface water. Rain-fed agriculture is fully based on green water, while irrigated agriculture is based on a combination of green and blue water. The industrial and domestic sectors are generally fully based on blue water. The blue water footprint of a nation is the volume of freshwater that evaporated from global blue water resources (ground- and surface water) to produce the goods and services consumed by its inhabitants. The green water footprint is the volume of water evaporated from global green water resources (rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture). We have expanded the water-footprint concept by including a third form of water use: water use as a result of pollution. We have proposed to quantify this “gray” water footprint by estimating the volume of water needed to dilute a certain amount of pollution such that it meets ambient water quality standards. We have elaborated this idea in the cotton study discussed in Chapter 9.

Active promotion of the import of virtual water in water-scarce countries is based on the idea that a nation can preserve its domestic water resources by importing a water-intensive product instead of producing it domestically. Import of virtual water thus leads to a “national water saving.” In addition to this, Oki and Kanae (2004) introduced the idea of a “global water saving.” International trade can save water globally when a water-intensive commodity is traded from an area where it is produced with high water productivity (low water input per unit of output) to an area with lower water productivity (high water input per unit of output). Conversely, there can be a “global water loss” if a water-intensive commodity is traded from an area with low water productivity to one with high water productivity. All studies of global water savings and losses as a result of international trade that have been carried out so far indicate that the net effect of current international trade is a global water saving (De Fraiture et al., 2004; Oki and Kanae, 2004; Chapagain et al., 2006a; Yang et al., 2006).

Since the International Expert Meeting on Virtual Water Trade, held in Delft, the Netherlands, in December 2002 (Hoekstra, 2003) and the special session on Virtual Water Trade and Geopolitics during the Third World Water Forum in Japan in March 2003, interest in the concepts of virtual water, water footprints, and global water saving has greatly increased. As a follow-up to the Water Forum in Japan, the World Water Council organized an e-conference on virtual-water trade and geopolitics (WWC, 2004). During three months in Fall 2003 about 300 people participated in a web-based debate about questions such as:

Does virtual-water trade contribute to the improvement of water availability and through that to local food security, livelihoods, environment, and local economy?In which conditions should virtual-water trade be encouraged?Does virtual water contribute to conflict resolution or will it increase tensions and conflict potential for those countries relying on trade?What governance structures would be necessary to enable a fair virtual-water trade?How can the concepts of virtual water and water footprints help in creating awareness about water consumption and saving water by modification of diet?What is required from whom to progress on the appropriate and fair introduction and use of the virtual-water concept?

After the e-conference, different workshops addressing virtual-water trade and water footprints were organized: by Stanford University (November 2004, March 2005), the German Development Institute (Bonn, September 2005), the Fourth World Water Forum (Mexico City, March 2006), the Global Water System Project (Bonn, June 2006), and the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (Frankfurt, July 2006), amongst others. In addition, a considerable number of Master and PhD students from all parts of the world have started to devote their studies to the subject. Apparently the issue of “trade and water” has quite suddenly been recognized as a relevant policy concern and an interesting research field. This book aims to summarize our current knowledge in the field, a somewhat tricky effort given the continuous stream of new research results.

In Chapter 2 we discuss how one can assess the virtual-water content of a commodity and show the resulting estimates for various products. In Chapter 3 we explain how international virtual-water transfers can be quantified and draw the virtual-water balance for each country of the world. Chapter 4 shows how international trade can result in both national and global water savings, but can also occasionally result in global water losses. In Chapter 5 we describe how to assess the water footprint of a nation and show the resulting estimates for all nations of the world. Chapter 6 contains a case study for the Netherlands, a humid country, and Morocco, an arid–semi-arid country. In Chapter 7 we elaborate on the virtual-water transfers within China, which surprisingly go from the water-scarce north to the water-rich south. In Chapter 8 we show the water footprint of coffee and tea consumption, and in Chapter 9 we do a similar but more detailed exercise for cotton. Chapter 10 shows how international trade has made many countries heavily “water dependent” and how water has thus become a geopolitical resource. In the final chapter we explore what sorts of global institutional arrangements are needed to make sure that international trade contributes not only to efficiency in water use, but also to sustainable and equitable water use across the globe.

Chapter 2

How Much Water is Used for Producing our Goods and Services?

In 2003 Novib, the Dutch branch of Oxfam International, asked us to estimate the total volume of water that is used to produce one cup of coffee, and similarly for a cup of tea. The question was to trace the origins of the coffee and tea and estimate the volumes of water used in the various production phases. Although we did indeed look at the water uses during the whole production chain, it was clear from the beginning that the agricultural stage, the stage in which the coffee and tea plants grow and deliver their products, would turn out to be the most water consuming. We had to look at the various origins of coffee and tea, because water requirements in one place are different from those in another place. Focusing on coffee, we also had to translate water use per hectare at field level into water use per ton of coffee cherries yielded, and further into water use per ton of roasted coffee, and finally into water use per cup of coffee. In other words, we had to find out, per coffee-producing country, how many cups of coffee can be annually derived from one hectare and relate that to the water use per hectare. We found out that on average a cup of coffee requires 140 liters of water, mostly rainwater for growth of the coffee plant. Wherever we presented our finding, people had difficulty believing it. Of course we started to let friends, colleagues, and students guess first. It seldom occurred that somebody’s guess was even in the right order of magnitude. To some extent we have become famous for our magic number of 140 liters, because this is a nice little fact that people like to remember, to bring up at coffee conversation at work or wherever. Although most people think that we are clever for having calculated this number, some colleagues have also criticized us for misleading people by presenting a meaningless number. The essence of the critique was that even if we were right, what would it matter? Most of the water used for coffee, and also for tea, is rainwater, which comes for free, doesn’t it?

Later on we will argue that although water generally does indeed come for free, this does not mean it does not have a value. The amount of rainwater above land varies over time and from place to place, but the global annual volume is more or less constant and sets an upper level to annual freshwater use worldwide. As soon as water is scarce, it has a value (by economic definition). Also, rainwater has a value if there are competing uses that cannot be fulfilled simultaneously. An economist would say: when rainwater is applied for the production of one crop, the opportunity cost of the rainwater is equal to the value that it would have generated if it had been applied for the production of another, more valuable crop. At this point, however, we are not going to follow this line of argument. Instead, we will consider the water need for a few other commodities, to give some factual basis.

Virtual Water