Water Footprint and Virtual Water Trade Approaches: Applications to the Water-Energy-Food-Land Nexus in a Context of Climate Change

Dear Colleagues,

Humanity faces major challenges to reconcile the goals of climate mitigation and adaptation, zero hunger, and sustainable use of water and land resources. Both water and land availability are limited, but demand for these resources is increasing due to the growing demand for food and energy and shifts towards more resource-intensive diets and energy mixes.

Climate change projections indicate that droughts, heat waves, and floods will be increasingly recurrent in many regions worldwide. This will affect the rainfall patterns, river flows, and groundwater in terms of both water quantity and quality. Agriculture will be impacted by the erratic availability of rainfall and the limited possibilities to irrigate as competition over surface- and groundwater resources increases. Decarbonization of the economy is vital to limit global warming and climate change. However, shifting away from fossil fuels to certain alternative energy sources might increase water and land footprints.

Since the effects of climate change are surrounded by uncertainty, it is essential to build resilience into food and energy systems. It is necessary to improve our capacity to face and adapt to new situations in order to ensure water, energy, food, and land security for the people and the planet on local and global scales. This calls for integrated, holistic approaches that consider the coherence between water, energy, food, land, and trade, such as water footprint assessment.

This Special Issue is open to papers that make progress in the field of water footprint assessment to address challenges in the water–energy–food–land nexus in the context of climate change. We welcome both original research and review papers that innovatively apply existing or develop new water footprint (green, blue, grey) and virtual water trade approaches in this context. We are broadly interested in studies on processes, products, organizations, (groups of) consumers, or specific geographical areas (e.g., river basins or nations).

Dr. Maite M. Aldaya
Dr. Diego Sesma-Martín
Dr. ir. Joep F. Schyns
Guest Editors

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