Spatially Explicit Analysis of Water Footprints in the UK

Water

Kuishuang Feng³  Klaus Hubacek⁵  Jan Minx¹  Yim Ling Siu³  Ashok Chapagain⁴  Yang Yu⁶  Dabo Guan² 

[1] Department for the Economics of Climate Change, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany; E-Mail:;Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 9EP, UK; E-Mail:;Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK; E-Mail:;WWF-UK, Panda House, Weyside Park, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 1XR, UK; E-Mail:;Department of Geography, College Park, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA;Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK; E-Mail:

关键词: water footprint;    virtual water;    input-output analysis;    supply chains;    lifestyles;    demand-side management;    integrated water management;   

DOI  :  10.3390/w3010047

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The Water Footprint, as an indicator of water consumption has become increasingly popular for analyzing environmental issues associated with the use of water resources in the global supply chain of consumer goods. This is particularly relevant for countries like the UK, which increasingly rely on products produced elsewhere in the world and thus impose pressures on foreign water resources. Existing studies calculating water footprints are mostly based on process analysis, and results are mainly available at the national level. The current paper assesses the domestic and foreign water requirements for UK final consumption by applying an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model in combination with geo-demographic consumer segmentation data. This approach allows us to calculate water footprints (both direct and indirect) for different products as well as different geographies within the UK. We distinguished between production and consumption footprints where the former is the total water consumed from the UK domestic water resources by the production activities in the UK and the latter is the total water consumed from both domestic and global water resources to satisfy the UK domestic final consumption. The results show that the production water footprint is 439 m³/cap/year, 85% of which is for the final consumption in the UK itself. The average consumption water footprint of the UK is more than three times bigger than the UK production water footprint in 2006. About half of the UK consumption water footprints were associated with imports from Non-OECD countries (many of which are water-scarce), while around 19% were from EU-OECD countries, and only 3% from Non-EU-OECD countries. We find that the water footprint differs considerably across sub-national geographies in the UK, and the differences are as big as 273 m³/cap/year for the internal water footprint and 802 m³/cap/year for the external water footprint. Our results suggest that this is mainly explained by differences in the average income level across the UK. We argue that the information provided by our model at different spatial scales can be very useful for informing integrated water supply and demand side management.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2010 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.