Virtual Water: An Introduction

Virtual Water: An Introduction

This week, leaving ground water behind and coming out of the earth, I want to focus on a concept that captures the hidden water integrated into our lives, not necessarily in forms we might expect. This is the concept of virtual water. For a more succinct definition: Virtual water is the amount of water required to produce a product, from start to finish and is a mainly neglected and hidden component of production (Lillywhite, 2010).

The concept was first developed as a way of understanding how the volume of water embedded into food and trade of clothing is vastly greater than the volume of water we drink. Virtual water creates the idea of a water footprint, similar to that of an ecological footprint, making the consumer focus on the production chain as well as the final product (VirtualWater, 2019).

To put the concept into perspective; the average person drinks around 900 to 1000 litres of water per year, the simple average of between 2 to 3 litres a day. Comparatively, just 500g of barley requires 650 litres of water to grow. This means that to grow less than a kilogram of barley you would have to use an entire year worth of water to drink (Yang, 2007). Even worse than crops, 500g of beef requires over 8,000 litres of water to produce, enough water for 8 people to comfortably live for a year.

Source: (VirtualWater, 2019)

The image is an infographic showing the varying levels of water required to produce certain commodities.

The concept, created by professors in Kings College London and The School of Oriental and African Studies, opens our eyes to the scale of water integrated or embedded into our lives that we do not consider. The concept helps people understand how much water goes into the production and trade of food and other consumer products like cotton (Allan, 2005).

The concept of virtual water can be used in the context of trade as when services or goods are exchanged, virtual water is exchanged and traded too. The concept is useful when looking into arid or semi-arid environments and their consumption. A country importing a tonne of wheat saves about 1,300 cubic metres of water compared to producing it domestically. If the country in question is water scarce, like the majority of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the water saved can be put towards other means (Fekete, 2013). However, if the exporting country is water-scare, it has lost that volume of water, meaning it will no longer be available for other purposes.

The creator of the concept, Professor John Anthony Allan, justifies virtual water below:

“The water is said to be virtual because once the wheat is grown, the real water used to grow it is no longer actually contained in the wheat. In semi-arid and arid areas, knowing the virtual water value of a good or service can be useful towards determining how best to use the scarce water available.”

When we apply the idea of virtual water to the water stressed nations of Africa, we look to analyse the link between it and levels of development. The biggest net importers of virtual water are North Africa and the Middle East, hardly surprising as they are also the most water stressed nations. Countries in Africa are starting to manage imports and exports by the volume of water embedded in the product (Lillywhite, 2010). By importing products that have a high amount of embedded water and exporting products with low embedded water, the country can effectively reduce the volume of water it uses at minimal cost.

I hope this blog has given a clear introduction to the concept of virtual water.