ONE often does not hear of water “moving” across oceans, locked in sacks and cartons of food. Yet food exports hide the significant global trade in water, which could be made transparent and reorganised to reduce water stress and increase global food security.
Several of the world’s most water-scarce regions are producing the most water-intensive crops - for example, water-intensive rice grown in arid parts of Australia, Mexico and the American West for export to Asia or Europe.
Many of these water-intensive crops are traded globally along with their water content and the water consumed in the production process. The trade, now referred to as virtual water exports, constitutes a net loss of water from water-scarce regions.
Why virtual water matters
VIRTUAL water is the embedded water used to produce agricultural and industrial goods. Estimates by Unesco-IHE, the international institute for water education, found some 1,040 billion sq m of virtual water are traded each year globally. This trade could be reorganised for water-scarce regions to become virtual importers, a reversal of their current net loss, and water-rich regions to become virtual exporters.
The reality is that it takes more water overall to produce water- intensive crops in water-scarce regions. This constitutes an inefficient use of water. For example, it requires twice as much water to produce grain in water-scarce regions as in water-rich regions.
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