Special Issue "Water Footprint: Usefulness of the Concept from Accounting Framework to Policy Response Options in Water Resources Management"

Guest Editor
Dr. Ashok K. Chapagain
Fresh Water/Sustainable Consumption, WWF-UK, Panda House, Weyside Park,GU7 1XR Godalming, Surrey, UK
Website: http://www.water-footprint.com/speakers.asp#Chapagain
E-Mail:
Interests: water and environmental resources management; water policy; sustainable consumption; agricultural water use; irrigation; resource use accounting (water footprint, carbon footprint and ecological footprint); water resources assessment; virtual water; globalisation of water resources

Submission

All manuscripts should be submitted to water@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page.

Water is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI. Open Access publication is free of charge for manuscripts submitted in 2009 and 2010, and published in the first few issues of Water. English correction fees and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF will be billed in certain cases (250 CHF per paper for those papers that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections).

• Methodological issues
• Water Footprint of products: methods and case studies
• Water Footprint of a river basin: examples from river basins shared internally and internationally
• Water Footprint of a nation, group of countries or a region
• Water Footprint in relation to understanding the risk to businesses
• An alternative to inter-basin river transfer
• Water Footprint linking food and water security
• A lens to Climate Change impacts on water resources
• Trade offs and links between Water Footprint and Carbon Footprint

Type of Paper: Review
Provisory Title: Impact of climate change on water resources and water footprint
Author: Velma I. Grover
Affiliation: Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Canada; E-Mail: vgrover@rogers.com
Provisory Abstract: The article will explore the impact of climate change on water cycle followed by a discussion on linkages of climate change on global water availability and its impact on environmental services, health and most importantly (for this article) on agriculture (and food security issues). The article will then look into use of the concept of water footprint on national policies on effective water management (holistic/integrated approach to manage impact of climate change and water shortages) including agricultural practices in terms of irrigation system, water losses, water productivity and selection of crops for regions.

Type of Paper: Article
Provisory Title: Comparing Water Footprints with their Carbon and Ecological Cousins
Author: Dennis Wichelns
Affiliation: Department of Agricultural Economics, California State University at Fresno, Fresno, CA, USA; E-Mail: dwichelns@csufresno.edu
Provisory Abstract: Many authors in recent years have developed empirical estimates of water footprints to illustrate the water used in the production and processing of selected goods and services. Many public agencies, private companies, and non-governmental organizations have adopted the water footprint approach to describing water use, both locally and regionally. Often the goal of discussing water footprints is to highlight opportunities for improving water use efficiency. Several authors have extended the literature regarding water footprints to include discussion of similarities and analogies with carbon and ecological footprints. Those constructs, while developed for somewhat similar purposes, actually describe somewhat different phenomena. In this paper, I describe the conceptual differences between water, carbon, and ecological footprints, with the goal of highlighting similarities and differences. Acknowledging the differences between these constructs will be helpful in ensuring that water footprint analysis is interpreted with due consideration for its appropriateness as well as its conceptual limitations.

Type of Paper: Article
Provisory Title: Spatially explicit analysis of water footprints in the UK
Authors: Kuishuang Feng ^1,2, Klaus Hubacek ^1,3, Yim Ling Siu ¹, Yang Yu ⁴, Jan Minx ^2,5, Dabo Guan ⁶ and John Barrett ²
Affiliations: ¹ Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK; E-Mail: k.hubacek@leeds.ac.uk
² Stockholm Environment Institute, Grimston House, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK
³ Department of Geography, College Park, University of Maryland, MD 20742, USA
⁴ Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK
⁵ Department for the Economics of Climate Change, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany
⁶ Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 9EP, UK
Provisory Abstract: Pressures on water resources have become unprecedented with rapid growth of consumption and changes of people’s lifestyle. The Water Footprint has become a significant indicator to address the use of water resources, particularly, countries like the UK, which increasingly rely on products produced elsewhere in the world, impose pressures on foreign water resources. We assess the domestic and foreign water requirements for UK’s consumption by applying an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model. This allows us to track direct and indirect water demands along the global supply chain and to compare consumption patterns for different lifestyle groups and their associated water footprints for the UK at the local authority level.
Firstly, we use the latest available water consumption data (2006/2007) for 23 industries published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and disaggregate to 178 industry sectors. Secondly, we calculate water footprints by developing a water input-output model. Thirdly, through linking the water input-output model with geo-demographic household consumption data, we can calculate the water footprints at local authority level. Finally, we integrate the local water footprints into a Geographical Information System (GIS) to produce visualised maps to analyse regional disparities.
This study develops a new framework to link the environmental input-output model to geo-demographic consumption data to spatially analyse supply of and demand for water as well as supply chain effects. The results can be used for informing national and local environmental strategies for the UK, in terms of sustainable water management.
Keywords: water footprint; virtual water; input-output analysis; industry supply chain; lifestyles; geodemographics