Re-Thinking Water and Food Security

RE-THINKING WATER AND FOOD SECURITY Re-thinking Water and Food Security Fourth Botín Foundation Water Workshop Editors Luis Martínez-Cortina Spanish Geological Survey (IGME), Spain Alberto Garrido Research Centre for the Management of Agricultural and Environmental Risks (CEIGRAM), Spain; Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Spain; Marcelino Botin Foundation – Water Observatory (FMB-WO), Spain Elena López-Gunn Marcelino Botin Foundation – Water Observatory (FMB-WO), Spain; London School of Economics (LSE), UK Cover photo: Courtesy of M. Campos and M. Rica Izquierdo. CRC Press/Balkema is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK Typeset by MPS Ltd. (A Macmillan Company), Chennai, India Printed and bound in Poland by Poligrafia Janusz Nowak, Poznán All rights reserved. No part of this publication or the information contained herein may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written prior permission from the publisher. Although all care is taken to ensure integrity and the quality of this publication and the information herein, no responsibility is assumed by the publishers nor the author for any damage to the property or persons as a result of operation or use of this publication and/or the information contained herein. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Marcelino Botín Water Forum (4th : 2009 : Santander, Spain) Re-thinking water and food security : fourth Marcelino Botín Foundation water workshop / editors, Luis Martínez-Cortina, Alberto Garrido, Elena López-Gunn. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-415-58790-7 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Water-supply–Security measures–Congresses. 2. Water resources development–Congresses. 3. Food security–Congresses. I. Martínez-Cortina, Luis. II. Garrido, Alberto, 1964– III. López-Gunn, Elena. IV.Title. TD201.M375 2009 363.6 1—dc22 2010031757 Published by: CRC Press/Balkema P.O. Box 447, 2300 AK Leiden, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] www.crcpress.com – www.taylorandfrancis.co.uk – www.balkema.nl ISBN: 978-0-415-58790-7 (Hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-82982-0 (eBook) Table of Contents Foreword VII M. Ramón Llamas Participants in the workshop XI I – Are global water resources a limitation for food production and security? 1 Food security in water-short countries – Coping with carrying capacity overshoot 3 Malin Falkenmark & Mats Lannerstad 2 Global agricultural green and blue water consumptive uses and virtual water trade 23 Junguo Liu & Hong Yang 3 Water scarcity and food security: A global assessment of water potentiality in Tunisia 33 Jamel Chahed, Mustapha Besbes & Abdelkader Hamdane II – Searching for water intelligence solutions 4 Can human ingenuity, Science and Technology help solve the world’s problems of water and food security? 55 Elena López-Gunn & M. Ramón Llamas 5 Producing more or wasting less? Bracing the food security challenge of unpredictable rainfall 75 Jan Lundqvist 6 Prioritising the processes beyond the water sector that will secure water for society – farmers, fair international trade and food consumption and waste 93 J.A. [Tony] Allan III – Economic development, the role of the private sector and ethical aspects 7 Present and future roles of water and food trade in achieving food security, reducing poverty and water use 109 Juan A. Sagardoy & Consuelo Varela-Ortega 8 Economic aspects of virtual water trade: Lessons from the Spanish case 145 Alberto Garrido, Paula Novo, Roberto Rodríguez-Casado & Consuelo Varela-Ortega V VI Table of Contents 9 Water commoditization: An ethical perspective for a sustainable use and management of water resources, with special reference to the Arab Region 159 Magdy A. Hefny 10 Water scarcity risks: Experience of the private sector 181 Stuart Orr & Anton Cartwright IV – Environmental conservation vs. food production 11 Incorporating the water footprint and environmental water requirements into policy: Reflections from the Doñana Region (Spain) 193 Maite M. Aldaya, Francisco García Novo & M. Ramón Llamas 12 The blue, green and grey water footprint of rice from both a production and consumption perspective 219 Ashok K. Chapagain & Arjen Y. Hoekstra 13 Water quality and nonpoint pollution: Comparative global analysis 251 José Albiac, Elena Calvo, Javier Tapia & Encarna Esteban V – The strategic role of groundwater in achieving food security 14 Intensive groundwater development: A water cycle transformation, a social revolution, a management challenge 259 Emilio Custodio 15 Electricity reforms and its impact on groundwater use: Evidence from India 299 Aditi Mukherji, Tushaar Shah & Shilp Verma VI – Water, energy and technology for food security 16 Water and energy nexus – Role of technology 309 Joppe F.Cramwinckel 17 Energy supply for the coming decades and the consequent water demand 319 Ignasi Nieto 18 The economics of desalination for various uses 329 Xavier Bernat, Oriol Gibert, Roger Guiu, Joana Tobella & Carlos Campos Postscript. The impossibilities of water in agriculture: An increasingly unreal world. What we have to do about it? 347 Margaret Catley-Carlson Glossary 353 Author Index 357 Subject Index 365 Geographic Index 373 Foreword CHAPTER LVIII – PART TWO “DON QUIXOTE” Which tells how adventures came crowding thick and fast on Don Quixote “Freedom”, he said, turning to Sancho, “is one of the most precious gifts that the heavens have bestowed on men; with it the treasures locked in the earth or hidden in the depths of the sea are not to be compared; for the sake of freedom, as for the sake of honor, one may and should risk one’s life, and captivity, on the other hand, is the greatest evil that can befall a human being. You have seen, Sancho, the abundance and luxury in that castle we have just left; yet I assure you that in the midst of those delicious banquets and snow-cooled beverages it seemed to me as though I were in the straits of hunger, since I did not enjoy them with the same freedom as if they had been my own. The obligation to return benefits and favors received is a shackle on the liberty-loving spirit of man. Happy he to whom Heaven gives a slice of bread without his being obliged to thank any other person but only Heaven itself!” Brief memorandum on the three previous Workshops and their approach This book contains most of the papers presented in the Fourth Marcelino Botin Foundation Water Workshop, after the authors reviewed their initial presentations for debate in the forum. There are a number of threads that sum up the approach that has always inspired BotinWorkshops. A first aspect is the search for innovation; “thinking out of the water box” together with a clear spirit of “freedom of thought and speech” (see Don Quixote quotation at the beginning). A second aspect is ensuring, as far as possible, that the participants come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds with persons coming from the natural and social sciences, not only from the Academia but also from the corporate world, NGOs and the political arena. The main goal of the Workshops is not to produce one more declaration or statement to be added to the hundreds that already exist, but to provide true added value by facilitating brain storming among a group of experts, often on purpose selected with clear different perspectives to incentivize high level constructive debate and productive discussion. Presentations of Spanish case studies are relatively frequent in this book. This is due, not only to the Spanish roots of the Botin Foundation but also to the fact that Spain is the driest country in Europe and it has experienced very significant political, social and economic changes during the last half century, becoming in a relatively short space of time an industrialized and democratic country. I was co-editor of the three books with the Proceedings of the corresponding Botin Foundation Water Workshops. This time I decided not to be co-editor because: a) the current co-editors are significantly younger than me and more skilful for this job; and b) this task is time-consuming and the current research projects of the Water Observatory demand all my time. The hot issues and glossary suggested to the participants in the fourth water workshop Several months before the Workshop I sent to all the participants a rather long list of what I considered hot issues, which could provide points to be discussed during the Workshop. Participants had the complete freedom to comment on them either in favor or against, or simply to forget them, since the main aim was to stimulate debate, as a warm up for the Workshop. Here I have not VII VIII Foreword Covers corresponding to the three previous books of the Marcelino Botin Foundation Water Workshops, published by Taylor & Francis reproduced the complete list; some of these hot issues are briefly commented below. Others will be probably dealt with in a future article. Additionally, and in order to facilitate the use of a common language, a tentative Glossary was sent to all the participants. It was prepared by Dr. M. Aldaya with the collaboration of some of the Workshop participants and it has been included at the end of this book. The relevance of green water and some questions not solved yet The relevance of green water in agricultural production has been emphasized in many of the chapters. This means that water and food security is influenced by land use and rain-fed agriculture. This emphasis however, was not equally shared by all the participants and this is an important finding in this Fourth Workshop. One main conclusion perhaps is the need for a better assessment of green water needs for the good health of the ecosystems. Another relevant pending question is how to cope with the great variability of rain-fed agriculture due to the normal climate variability, independently of the relevance of climate change.

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