Applications and Response Formulations of Water Footprint Methodology for Conservation of Water Resources

Abstract

Water footprint (WF) method is a recently developed environmental tool that quantifies the effect of anthropogenic processes on the fresh water resources. Unlike traditional water use statistics, the WF methodology is quite useful aiming to separately measure the degree and type of human allocation from all water intensive sectors and combine them into a single unit (water volumes) considering spatial and temporal variations. Production of agricultural crops, farm animals, industrial goods, commodities and all other artificial processes are among the main subjects that are analyzed by WF studies. The processed water is investigated by assigning different colors as blue, green and gray water. Blue water is defined as total volume of surface and ground water resources that are exploited by abovementioned purposes. Green water is characterized as the part of used rainwater that is not converted into surface runoff (soil moisture). Finally, the gray water is known as the total volume of fresh water needed to dilute the contaminant substances mixed by these processes back to the natural environmental standards. Consequently, the WF approach provides significant contributions to the integrated water management studies and has been effectively applied to various sectors especially in the last decade. WF methodology also offers completely novel insights into optimum water management works revealing the global and economic dimensions of local resources. In this article, the WF indicators for various products, processes and regions have been analyzed and discussed based on the data generated by previous state-of-the-art studies. Then, suitable response formulations that can effectively be applied to the water management studies have been investigated and systematically detailed in order to solve regional or national water problems and possible future crises.