Water Footprint of Cities: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Paterson, Willa; Rushforth, Richard; Ruddell, Benjamin L.; Konar, Megan; Ahams, I. C.; Gironás, Jorge; Mijic, Ana; Mejía, Alfonso

doi:10.3390/su7078461

Cited by 89 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 152 publications

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“…This paper documents urban water footprint balances for the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. In addition, this paper addressees several fundamental urban water footprint [26] and teleconnection questions at the most relevant scales spanning the national to the local scale [27,28]. At the national scale, we wish to understand which locations within the United States depend on the PMA's water resources and, conversely, on what water resources the PMA relies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hydro-Economic Interdependency of Cities: Virtual Water Connections of the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan Area

Rushforth

Ruddell

2015

Sustainability

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Abstract:Water footprinting has revealed hydro-economic interdependencies between distant global geographies via trade, especially of agricultural and manufactured goods. However, for metropolitan areas, trade not only entails commodity flows at many scales from intra-municipal to global, but also substantial intra-metropolitan flows of the skilled labor that is essential to a city's high-value economy. Virtual water flows between municipalities are directly relevant for municipal water supply policy and infrastructure investment because they quantify the hydro-economic dependency between neighboring municipalities. These municipalities share a physical water supply and also place demands on their neighbors' water supplies by outsourcing labor and commodity production outside the municipal and water supply system boundary to the metropolitan area. Metropolitan area communities span dense urban cores to fringe agricultural towns, spanning a wide range of the US hydro-economy. This study quantifies water footprints and virtual water flows of the complete economy of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area's municipalities. A novel approach utilized journey to work data to estimate virtual water flows embedded in labor. Commodities dominate virtual water flows at all scales of analysis, however labor is shown to be important for intra-metropolitan virtual water flows. This is the first detailed water footprint analysis of Phoenix, an important city in a water-scarce region. This study establishes a hydro-economic typology for communities to define several niche roles and decision making points of view. This study's findings can be used to classify communities with respect to their relative roles, and to benchmark future improvements in water OPEN ACCESS Sustainability 2015, 7 8523 sustainability for all types of communities. More importantly, these findings motivate cooperative approaches to intra-metropolitan water supply policy that recognize the hydro-economic interdependence of these municipalities and their shared interest in ensuring a sustainable and resilient hydro-economy for all members of the metropolitan area.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hydro-Economic Interdependency of Cities: Virtual Water Connections of the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan Area

Rushforth

Ruddell

2015

Sustainability

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“…The detailed cumulative effects in terms of food categories during the research period are shown in Table 2 and will be discussed further. 3 to the increase in the WF. The increase of the WF r was slightly weakened by the consumption of vegetables (−0.78 Mm 3 ), tea (−0.53 Mm 3 ), and oil crops (−0.10 Mm 3 ).…”

Section: Decomposition Of the Wf Of Rural Food Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More than half of the world's population now lives in cities, and the very rapid urban population growth expected in the next few decades will place more stress on water resources [2,3]. China's historically rapid urbanization has led to two-thirds of China's 669 cities having water shortages [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decomposition of the Urban Water Footprint of Food Consumption: A Case Study of Xiamen City

et al. 2017

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Decomposition of the urban water footprint can provide insight for water management. In this paper, a new decomposition method based on the log-mean Divisia index model (LMDI) was developed to analyze the driving forces of water footprint changes, attributable to food consumption. Compared to previous studies, this new approach can distinguish between various factors relating to urban and rural residents. The water footprint of food consumption in Xiamen City, from 2001 to 2012, was calculated. Following this, the driving forces of water footprint change were broken down into considerations of the population, the structure of food consumption, the level of food consumption, water intensity, and the population rate. Research shows that between 2001 and 2012, the water footprint of food consumption in Xiamen increased by 675.53 Mm 3 , with a growth rate of 88.69%. Population effects were the leading contributors to this change, accounting for 87.97% of the total growth. The food consumption structure also had a considerable effect on this increase. Here, the urban area represented 94.96% of the water footprint increase, driven by the effect of the food consumption structure. Water intensity and the urban/rural population rate had a weak positive cumulative effect. The effects of the urban/rural population rate on the water footprint change in urban and rural areas, however, were individually significant. The level of food consumption was the only negative factor. In terms of food categories, meat and grain had the greatest effects during the study period. Controlling the urban population, promoting a healthy and less water-intensive diet, reducing food waste, and improving agriculture efficiency, are all elements of an effective approach for mitigating the growth of the water footprint.

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“…One is the perspective of the water supply, mainly to discuss water supply management [8][9][10][11][12] and unconventional water resource utilization [13][14][15][16]. The other is the perspective of urban water demand, which mainly focuses on water conservation [17][18][19][20] and water use efficiency improvement [21][22][23][24][25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Use Efficiency Improvement against a Backdrop of Expanding City Agglomeration in Developing Countries—A Case Study on Industrial and Agricultural Water Use in the Bohai Bay Region of China

Bai

Zhou

Zhao

et al. 2017

Water

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Most city agglomerations of developing countries face water shortages and pollution due to population growth and industrial aggregation. To meet such water security challenges, policy makers need to evaluate water use efficiency at the regional or basin level because the prosperity of city agglomerations is indispensable to the sustainable development of the region or basin. To solve the issue, this paper adopts a non-directional distance function within the framework of environmental production technology to measure water use efficiency. Based on the distance between actual water use efficiency and the ideal efficiency, it calculates the potential reduction space of water input and pollutants by slack adjustment. Added to the Malmquist index, it forms a non-radial Malmquist water use performance index, which can be divided into technological change and technical efficiency change, to measure dynamic water use efficiency. Further, water use efficiency change is analyzed from the perspectives of technological improvement and institutional construction. Bohai Bay city agglomeration, a typical water-deficient city agglomeration in China, is taken as a case study, and data on water resource, environment, and economy from 2011 to 2014 have been used. In conclusion, there is much space for water use efficiency improvement on the whole. However, even having considered potential reduction space of water input and pollutant discharge under current environmental production technology, it is still not enough to support the city agglomeration's sustainable development. To relieve current potential water safety hazards, not only technical improvement but also institution innovation for highly efficient water use should be kept accelerating in Bohai Bay region. In terms of urban water management in developing countries, the research conclusion is of theoretical and practical significance.

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Water Footprint of Cities: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Cited by 89 publications

References 152 publications

The Hydro-Economic Interdependency of Cities: Virtual Water Connections of the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan Area

The Hydro-Economic Interdependency of Cities: Virtual Water Connections of the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan Area

Decomposition of the Urban Water Footprint of Food Consumption: A Case Study of Xiamen City

Water Use Efficiency Improvement against a Backdrop of Expanding City Agglomeration in Developing Countries—A Case Study on Industrial and Agricultural Water Use in the Bohai Bay Region of China

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