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Occasional Paper Occasional Paper ISSUE NO. 298 FEBRUARY 2021 © 2021 Observer Research Foundation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, archived, retained or transmitted through print, speech or electronic media without prior written approval from ORF. Finding Solutions to Water Scarcity: The Potential of Virtual Water Trade in Agricultural Products Roshan Saha and Preeti Kapuria tend to become Abstract This paper analyses the patterns of virtual water trade (VWT) in agricultural products across the globe—VWT is the flow of water embedded in goods and services when they are traded—and the implications for alleviating water scarcity. Virtual water trade has been crucial in ameliorating water scarcity in virtual water-importing nations. At the same time, it has led to per capita water availability declining at a more rapid rate among the net virtual water-exporting countries like India, which are water- scarce, to begin with. This paper argues that despite a few shortcomings, virtual water trade remains a useful tool in water resources management. To be effective, it must be supported by economic instruments that capture the “scarcity value” of water and drive optimal decision-making in agricultural water resource management. Attribution: ArchitRoshan Lohani, Saha and “Countering Preeti Kapuria, Misinformation “Finding Solutions and Hate to Speech Water Online:Scarcity: Regulation The Potential and of User Virtual Behavioural Water Trade Change,”in Agricultural ORF OccasionalProducts,” Paper ORF No.Occasional 296, January Paper No. 2021, 298 Observer, February Research 2021, Observer Foundation. Research Foundation. 012 emand for water has risen massively across the world in the last few decades, due to increasing world population, changes in living standards and consumption patterns, and expansion of irrigated agriculture.1 The World Economic Forum, in its Global Risks Report 2020 has noted that “water crises” are the largest global risks of the near future.2 While “water wars”, as some fear, are still not likely, water D 3 scarcity is a growing concern that requires immediate attention. Certain regions like the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are extremely water-scarce and therefore dependent on other countries to meet parts of their basic water needs, especially in agriculture. Most of their domestic food demand is met through imports. These imports make up for the water scarcity in the region by utilising the water resources of other countries through the transfer of “virtual water”. Virtual water refers to the quantum of water used to produce a good or service; it is the volume of water embedded in that good or service.4 When goods and services are traded, all the factors used in their production phases, in a virtual sense, also move across and within countries and regions. The movement of such embedded water is known as “virtual water trade”.a,5 Virtual water trade has the potential to reduce global water scarcity by distributing water resources ‘virtually’ from the relatively water-surplus regions, to the water-scarce. By ensuring that virtual water transfers also take place from regions with higher water productivity to those with lower, it can ensure efficiency in global water use. Historical evidence from the Roman Empire underlines the importance of virtual water trade in determining the resilience of a region/country against the twin threats of growing demand and climatic variability.6 In that pre-industrial era, Romans used the virtual water trade embedded in food grains through the Mediterranean and Black Sea region to link the food surplus and deficit areas within the empire. This helped ensure a steady supply of grain to the main cities of the empire even when local water resources were insufficient to meet cultivation and domestic needs.7 Although evidence is available only for trade, it can be assumed that virtual water trade was an important factor that spatially integrated the empire and also enhanced its longevity.8 Since the mid-20th century, water resources management has undergone a paradigm shift—from supply-side interventions to demand management. There has also emerged certain interdisciplinary approaches to policymaking in the form of integrated water resources management (IWRM).b A central Introduction a The term was coined by John Anthony Allan in 1993. b In IWRM, water is viewed as an integral component of the global hydrological cycle and not as a stock of material resource to be utilised solely for the satisfaction of human needs. 3 tenet of IWRM is “clear and strict prioritisation of various types of needs and demands for water.”9 Optimal allocation of a scarce resource, in this case water, among multiple uses, is the canonical definition of economics, as proposed by Sir Lionel Robbins.10 An optimal strategy would involve putting water to its best possible use. Economic instruments such as price (equivalent to the marginal productivity of water) can play an important role in this optimisation exercise. In the presence of a market that reflects this information, regions or countries can decide on the most productive use of their water resources. Markets for water do exist in Chile, California, and the Murray-Darling basin in Australia. On 17 September 2020, the US’ CME Group and NASDAQc,11 together announced the launch of the NASDAQ Velles California water futures market. But IWRM is yet to be incorporated into decision-making at the required scale in other places. The World Bank has found that the agriculture sector accounts for 70 percent of water use across the world. Implementing IWRM in agricultural water resource planning can therefore alleviate water scarcity.12 Agro-climatic conditions determine the water intensity of agricultural production across regions. If certain regions are not suitable for the production of water-intensive crops,d it is prudent to utilise the scarce water resources available for other purposes such as domestic or industrial consumption. The water demand for these other uses, especially domestic, entails in-situ consumption. But water requirement for food products can be met through imports of those products wherever feasible. If regions that are unsuitable for the cultivation of water-intensive products like paddy, import them from regions agro-climatically more suitable, the former would be virtually importing water and thus increasing its availability, albeit in virtual form.13 This puts virtual water trade strategy at the centre of policies envisioned under an IWRM paradigm. While ‘water wars’ are still not likely, water scarcity is very real and requires immediate attention. Introduction c The company that owns the NASDAQ stock exchange. d Due to factors like arid climate, for example. 4 The subsequent sections discuss the evolution of the concept of virtual water trade within a standard theory of international trade, and the patterns of such trade across the world. The paper then analyses whether water resource endowments have been the primary factor in virtual water trade, by mapping virtual water exports and imports against the per capita water availability in the top virtual water-exporting and -importing countries. The results suggest a need to incorporate demand-side management through valuation of water resources as an integral element of making virtual water trade an efficient tool of IWRM and alleviating water scarcity. Globally, agriculture accounts for 70% of water use. Sound water management in agriculture can alleviate scarcity. Introduction 5 Heckscher-Ohlin and the Theory of Comparative Advantage irtual water trade has its theoretical foundations in the concept of comparative advantage propounded by David Ricardo in his 1817 treatise, “On the Principals of Political Economy and Taxation”.14 However, only after Alfred Marshall, William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger and Leon Walras had developed the neo-classical school Vof economics in the late 19th century, did it become possible to generalise David Ricardo’s theory, by going beyond the labour theory of value and examining why countries have comparative advantages in different goods and services. In 1936, Bertil Ohlin and Eli Heckscher formulated a compelling argument that explained the differences in comparative advantage across commodities and countries by incorporating a neo-classical general equilibrium framework for a single economy and subsequently for an economy with international trade.15,16,17 The Heckscher-Ohlin theorem states that a country/region exports a product which is intensive in the factor of production that is relatively abundant in the country/region. The theorem linked export-import patterns to factor endowments.18 A crucial assumption of the H-O model was that of similar production technology across countries. Ohlin’s definition of relative factor abundance rests on the pre-trade price ratio of factor prices in the two countries. The final price of a product is dependent upon the factor prices. According to Heckscher and Ohlin, if a factor of production is relatively abundant in a country/region, it is supposed to reflect in a relatively cheaper price for that factor.e Introducing a relatively capital abundant foreign economy into the model, with the subscripts H and F for home and foreign countries, respectively— ; х; ௉಴ ௉಴ ௉೅ሻு ௉೅ሻி where PT and PC represent the prices of textiles (T) and computers (C), respectively. This implies that the relative price of computers is higher in the home country. The home country can be said to be relatively less abundant in capital, and e In a hypothetical two-good, two-factor economy, comprising, say, computers and textiles, and labour and capital, if the factor price of capital is higher than that of labour, the economy is considered to be relatively abundant in labour and scarce in capital. This pattern of factor abundance will then reflect Virtual Water Trade: Virtual Water Trade: Theoretical Underpinnings in the relative price of the products. Production of computers can be assumed to be relatively more capital intensive, while that of textiles is relatively labour intensive.
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