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Grey Water Footprint Indicator of Water Pollution in the Production of Organic Vs

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Grey Water Footprint Indicator of Water Pollution in the Production of Organic Vs Grey Water Footprint Indicator of Water Pollution in the Production of Organic vs. Conventional Cotton in India Authors Nicolas Franke and Ruth Mathews, Water Footprint Network Acknowledgments The project presented in this report was funded by the C&A Foundation. We would like to thank Erika Zarate and Derk Kuiper for their contribution to Phase 1 of this project and to Guoping Zhang and Arjen Hoekstra for their review. We would like to thank the Grey Water Footprint Expert Panel, for their contributions to the grey water footprint guidelines: Aaldrik Tiktak (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Netherlands), Alain Renard (Sustainable Business Development, C&A, Brussels), Bernd Lennartz (Faculty for Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Rostock University, Germany), Himanshu Joshi (Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee (U.P.), India), Julian Dawson (The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Scotland UK), Ranvir Singh (Massey University, New Zealand), Roger Moussa (French National Institute of Agricultural Research, France), Richard Coupe (U.S. Geological Survey, Pearl, Mississippi), Mark Huijbregts (Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands), Colin Brown (University of York – UK), Mathias Zessner (Vienna University of Technology, Austria), and Merete Styczen (KU‐ Life, Copenhagen, Denmark). We would also like to thank Mr. Sumit Garg and Ms. Rosanne Gray from CottonConnect for their valuable work related to the collection and verification of data from the farms in India. We are grateful to Mr. Phil Chamberlain and Alain Renard from C&A for their support of the Water Footprint Network’s mission and for the application of the grey water footprint method at C&A. The material and conclusions contained in this publication are for information purposes only and the authors offer no guarantee for the accuracy and completeness of its contents. All liability for the integrity, confidentiality or timeliness of this publication or for any damages resulting from the use of information herein is expressly excluded. Under no circumstances shall the partners be liable for any financial or consequential loss relating to this product. The publication is based on expert contributions, has been refined in a consultation process and carefully compiled into the present form. The partners of the initiative consider it a living document that will be adapted to the circumstances based on new findings and concepts, future experiences and lessons learnt. Contents Contents Figures and Tables .............................................................................................................................. 4 Foreword ................................................................................................................................................... 5 Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................... 6 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 8 2. Objective ........................................................................................................................................ 9 3. Method and data ............................................................................................................................ 9 3.1. Grey water footprint .......................................................................................................................... 9 3.1.1. The grey water footprint of a farm ..................................................................................... 10 3.1.2. The grey water footprint per unit of crop ........................................................................... 10 3.2. Grey water footprint expert panel guidelines .................................................................................. 11 3.2.1. Handling of organic pesticides ............................................................................................ 11 3.2.2. Nitrogen and phosphorous leaching from compost ........................................................... 12 3.2.3. Leaching‐runoff fractions of phosphorous and pesticides .................................................. 12 3.2.4. Ambient water quality standards and natural background concentrations ....................... 13 3.3. Recalculation of GWF of Phase I ....................................................................................................... 14 3.3.1. Values used for leaching‐runoff fractions ........................................................................... 14 3.3.2. Values used for maximum allowable concentrations ......................................................... 14 3.3.3. Values used for natural background concentration ............................................................ 15 3.4. Farms sampled ................................................................................................................................. 15 3.5. Analysis of farming practices ............................................................................................................ 17 4. Results .......................................................................................................................................... 18 4.1. Conventional farming systems ......................................................................................................... 18 4.2. Organic farming systems .................................................................................................................. 19 4.3. Comparison between conventional and organic farming systems .................................................. 20 5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 23 References ........................................................................................................................................ 24 Annex I – Expert Panel ............................................................................................................................. 25 Annex II – Quality standards and natural background concentrations used .......................................... 26 Annex III – Conventional and organic fertilizers and pesticides used by farmers for cotton cultivation in India, for the two samples analysed ....................................................................................................... 28 Annex IV – Grey water footprint for the 240 conventional farms ...................................................... ‐ 38 ‐ Annex V – Grey water footprint for the 240 organic farms ................................................................ ‐ 63 ‐ 3 Grey Water Footprint Organic vs. Conventional Cotton Figures and Tables Figures and Tables Figures Figure 1: Location of the Indian districts selected for this study. (Zarate et al., 2011) ............................... 16 Figure 2: Description of the samples used for the evaluation of grey water footprints from conventional and organic cotton cultivation in India. (Zarate et al., 2011) ...................................................................... 16 Figure 3: Grey water footprint related to the corresponding yield for the conventional farmers. ............ 18 Figure 4: Grey water footprint related to the corresponding yield for the organic farmers. ..................... 19 Figure 5: Comparing grey water footprint related to the corresponding yield between conventional and organic farmers. .......................................................................................................................................... 21 Tables Table 1: Minimum and maximum default values to be used for leaching‐runoff fractions. ....................... 13 Table 2: Average default values to be used for leaching‐runoff fractions. ................................................. 13 Table 3: Maximum allowable concentration for phosphorous suggested by the Expert Panel. ................. 15 Table 4: Determining pesticides for the grey water footprint in conventional farming. ............................. 19 Table 5: Overall results of conventional and organic farming. ................................................................... 20 Table 6: Top 10 highest grey water footprint per tonne comparing conventional and organic farms. ...... 21 Table 7: Determining fertilizers for the grey water footprint. ..................................................................... 22 Table 8: Members of the grey water footprint expert panel 2012. ............................................................. 25 Table 9: Quality standards and natural background concentrations used for grey water footprint calculations. ................................................................................................................................................. 26 Table 10: Summary of fertilizers and its composition for conventional farming. (Zarate et al., 2011) ...... 28 Table 11: Summary of pesticides and its composition for conventional farming. (Zarate et al., 2011) ...... 30 Table 12: Summary of fertilizers and its composition for organic farming. (Zarate et al., 2011) ............... 33 Table 13: Summary of pesticides used for organic farming. (Zarate et al., 2011) ...................................... 35 4 Grey Water Footprint Organic vs. Conventional Cotton Foreword Foreword Sustainability
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