Water footprint key to sustainable agriculture, says Derk Kuiper, executive director of the Water Footprint Network. Excerpts from an interview with EurActiv

Precise data on water usage will soon help farmers and policymakers make better decisions on where to grow crops, says Derk Kuiper from the Water Footprint Network, a UN-backed organisation established in 2008 in the Netherlands to promote sustainable and equitable water use worldwide by promoting the water footprint.

Kuiper believes that better information about water usage will lead to more efficient agricultural production as the data can help pinpoint where to grow high-water demand crops that are essential to Europe’s food security.

For example, producing crops like wheat and rice, which demand a substantial amount of water, is not efficient in Spain, where temperatures are higher and the sun brighter. This, he said is “quite a waste of water because you have other regions in Europe that would be much better suited for the production of foodstuffs”.

While this kind of debate has not yet officially started, Kuiper is convinced it will soon greatly influence decisions on national food security. “We will see this coming,” Kuiper said, adding “there might actually be an opportunity to start opening those discussions at European level”.

Kuiper believes the water footprinting methodology can help craft better policies in specific river basins, as the data helps to understand the water consumption of all economic sectors around a particular river or lake.

The method allows comparison of the value that different sectors bring to society and the development of strategies to deal with water scarcity and pollution, he explained.

Economics of water footprint

Water footprinting can also play a role as an indicator in the debate on the pricing of ecological services, as well as trade and investment policies, Kuiper added.

The water footprint network has produced a report – which is not yet public – for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the use of water footprinting as a sustainability indicator in various policy initiatives, both at global and local level.

The network, launched 10 years ago, has the support of the WWF and businesses such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé. It hopes to achieve a transition towards fairer and more efficient use of freshwater resources worldwide, as growing industrial activity has intensified competition for water.

Asked about possible ways to offset water consumption, in a similar vein to carbon emissions, Kuiper admitted that this would be almost impossible to achieve. “Talks about how a market of water offset credits are increasing,” said Kuiper, “but nobody knows how to do it.”

Towards water footprint standard

In the long run, Kuiper hopes a global method will emerge to perform water footprinting assessments across a range of industries. “We hope to bring together the science, practitioners and other stakeholders in the community around water management and drive forward the development of the standard,” he said. “We do not want to end up in the same situation like with carbon where there are many, even competing, methods for assessing the carbon footprint.”

An initial version of standards for water footprinting was produced in 2009 in order to bring everybody to the same starting point. A revised version of the manual will be published in February 2011, together with updated data on the water footprint of nations and products.

Focus on agriculture

The lack of good quality datasets, however, remains a major problem in accurately measuring water footprints and is preventing the idea from fulfilling its potential to help localised water management. The data varies from high resolution climatic data to crop and production data as well as water quality.

“Whenever you see a water footprint assessment, these assessments always specify on which dataset, under what timeframe and which resolution they are based on – because there are a lot of assumptions. But it does not mean that the numbers are wrong – it means that numbers can be better,” Kuiper said. “But the question is how much of that data you really need to act in a sustainable manner in the course of your water consumption.”

Another challenge is missing information on water use and consumption in sectors other than agriculture and food production, he said. This is because the water footprint and virtual water trade debates originated from food security issues and that is where the main numbers are. “We don’t have data on global consumption of water localised in time and space for the mining sector, for example, or that for the oil and gas industry,” Kuiper said. “So, we cannot yet build a very complete picture of all water consumption globally, just because some sectors are still missing.”

Background of Water Footprint Network“The idea of the water footprint has been there for 10 years. It was created by Professor Arjen Y Hoekstra, who at the time worked at the UNESCO IHE, now one of the founding partners of the Water Footprint Network. UNESCO IHE is the one devising the methodology and putting numbers to the methodology of water footprinting.

The methodology started from the work of Tony Allan of the UK, who investigated the issue of virtual water and virtual water trade. Professor Hoekstra and his group at UNESCO IHE basically expanded on that concept and put numbers to it.

Organisations like World Wildlife Fund (WWF) were very interested in the concept, as they had been trying for a long time to get to grips with the production and consumption side of water use. Water footprint seemed, at the time, an interesting concept to start better understanding the link between consumption and production and to get supply chains and global trade into the picture of water issues locally.

The first meeting organised around the issue in September 2007 included Hoekstra, representatives of UNESCO IHE, participants from WWF, Coca Cola, Nestlé and the WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development). That group of people expanded hugely during the course of 2008 and currently many more are now working with us to create a standard for water footprint. We don’t see that the water footprint will deliver everything to everybody but we think that it can help.”