Virtual Water
How much water is in a cup of coffee? A 30 mL espresso shot requires 140 L of water to produce.
All, but the 30 mil of that is virtual water .
often cited as an example of environmental unsustainability The term virtual water was coined by Professor Tony Allan.
Virtual water was the concept put forward by Tony Allen As the method by which water scares countries like those in the Middle East can secure their food supply. And co
Negate the need for conflict conflicts of regional water allocation can be reduced or avoided .
A highly principal towering intellect concerned with inequity and injustice.
Professor Tony Allen‘s work was complex, inspiring and interdisciplinary spelling geography agriculture, environmental studies, economics, politics, and management.
Virtual water versus water footprint.
Virtual water is the water that is hidden in a product or service that you buy and use every day.
The water is consumed throughout the value chain which makes creation of the product or service possible.
Virtual water goes unseen by the end user.
Virtual water is sometimes referred to as embedded water Or indirect water.
Direct water
Direct water use is the water that can be seen felt and used in a given time and location to produce an item or service. It is the water necessary to carry out an operation or activity. Given him point in time in the creation of a product or service, it is the water used in the specific activity that comes directly from a pipe or a tap.
Example a microchip manufacturer uses highly distilled water in its process or a beverage bottler cleans bottles these are both direct Operations.
Water stress
Essential such as food and clothing are water intensive in their production.
The virtual water concept was first conceived as a way to understand how water stressed countries could provide their people with sufficient food clothing and other water intensive items.
However many goods and services are exchanged through global trade and so water scarce countries rely more and more on the water resources of other countries to supply their consumer product needs.
As Such a country with limited water resources often import water-intensive goods, such as cotton textiles, rather than have local growers cultivate cotton crops at cost of water conditions.
There are overlaps between virtual water and water footprints, but they are not equivalent.
Food and other products are traded internationally their water footprint follows them in the form of virtual water.
This allows us to link the footprint of production to the water footprint of consumption.
Virtual water flow helps us see how the water resources in one country are used to support consumption in another country.
Virtual water versus water footprint
While virtual water and water footprint can both refer to the water used to produce an item the water footprint concept can be applied more broadly. For instance, the virtual water content of product is the total sum of the water used along the value chain. This can be from country to country. A water intensive activity can occur in a different country to the country in which the product is consumed. A water stressed country might import water intensive products and an alternative to using a lot of water from their scarce resources.
Water footprints
A water footprint can be analyse and separated into the components of water footprints, blue, green, and grey. That products water footprint can be assessed determine whether the production process is sustainable with its local water and ecological conditions.
The WWf calculator is one option for this.
Virtual water history
Virtual concept was the brainchild of Dr. Tony Allan.
Dr. Allan was a Middle Eastern specialist..
He identified that Middle Eastern and North African countries were able to meet their food needs in spite of struggling with water Scarcity.
By importing food from water rich countries these water stress countries were able to overcome water scarcity and their environment and economies.
In 2008 Professor Allan, among others, won the Stockholm world water prize for this.
Water calculator https://watercalculator.org/wfc2/q/household/
Story of virtual water
The story of virtual water is a good one.
The term wasCoined by John Anthony Allan.
He is best known as Tony Allan.
Tony’s academic journey may not be what you expect. He wasn’t Oxford or Cambridge and he wasn’t originally a scientist. Instead, Tony was schooled in Newcastle and graduated with a first class BA from Durham University.
Tony was born in Newcastle
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tony was the second child of Mary (nee Simpson) and John Allan, a policeman.
during the winter of 1937.
He attended Dame Allan’s boys’ school
In 1955, he went up to Durham University where he read geography. In 1958 Tony graduated with a first class degree.
Between 1958 and 1966, And despite his great intellect, Tony did not take up an academic career immediately after his degree.
After Durham, it took him six months to sign up for army national services and he spent two years serving, from February 1959 to February 1961. The first year was spent augmenting his surveying expertise – gained at university – in army training schools in Chatham and Newbury; the second was spent in the Aden Protectorate and Oman as a junior officer running a survey team collecting map information. Tony then did various jobs in northeast England for the next five years, during which time his mother passed away.
It wasn’t until 1966 that Tony commenced his PhD At the school of Oriental and African studies. His PhD was on water Management in Libya. He completed this in 1971, at the age of 34.
It was in 1993 that he coined the term virtual water. By this time Tony was 56 years old.
His inspiration came from Gideon Fishelson, of Tel Aviv University.
Gideon had quite rightly Criticised His government over the Amount Of water Used to produce and export citrus fruits to the European Union.
Dr. Alan researched trade Figures of Middle Eastern states, a water scare region. Dr. Alan concluded that if the area imported food It would not be dependent on its own scarce water resources. The water required for production of the necessary goods could be purchased indirectly, Already embedded within them .
Water wars
With this Dr. Alan. Challenged the ThinkingThat’s the wars of the next century will be fought over water.
Instead, importation of water embedded mostly in cereals into water scarce regions would make water wars unnecessary.
Appointed professor at Soas in the early 1990s, he took up a position at King’s College London when his department moved to the King’s campus in 2001, and he continued to teach and research as an emeritus professor well beyond retirement in 2002. Six years later he was awarded the Stockholm water prize.
In 2008 Alan was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize. contributions to international water science and policy. "Professor Allan pioneered the development of key concepts in the understanding and communication of water issues and how they are linked to agriculture, climate change, economics and politics." The award includes a prize of US$ 150,000.
Tony Allan was a passionate educator, communicator and mentor, teaching until justbweeks before he died of throat cancer at the age of 84. By this time he was Emeritus Professor Allan, Scientific Pioneer.
of Geography at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and King's College London.
Professor Tony Allen‘s work was complex, inspiring and interdisciplinary spelling geography agriculture, environmental studies, economics, politics, and management. As well as excelling in water science and several other disciplines, he was master at distilling complex ideas and making them intelligible to a wide audience.
He will probably be remembered most by water scholar colleagues as inventor of the concept of virtual water .
The concept suggest that when countries in import food they implicitly import the water that has been used to produce that food in the country of origin .
Inspired by Tel Aviv citrus .
How much water is in a cup of coffee? A 30 mL espresso shot requires 140 L of water to produce?
All, but the 30 mil of that is virtual water .
This means the water scares countries like those in the Middle East can secure their food supply and conflicts of regional water allocation can be reduced or avoided .
The virtual concept has also more generally helped to put across and get accepted in academia and policy. The point that water is politics. .
Tony had a strong sense of justice. His PhD was primarily considered with the inequity and injustice of water distribution. In his vast experience of supervising PhD students where he felt the system could be unjust..
2008 he is 71.
In agriculture . The states could only.
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