This book pursues a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach in order to analyze the relationship between water and food security. It demonstrates that most of the world’s economies lack sufficient water resources to secure their populations’ food requirements and are thus virtual importers of water. One of the most inspiring cases, which this book is rooted in, is Italy: the third largest net virtual water importer on earth. The book also shows that the sustainability of water depends on the extent to which societies recognize and take into account its value and contribution to agricultural production. Due to the large volumes of water required for food production, water and food security are in fact inextricably linked. Contributions from leading international experts and scholars in the field use the concepts of virtual water and water footprints to explain this relationship, with an eye to the empirical examples of wine, tomato and pasta production in Italy. This book provides a valuable resource for all researchers, professionals, policymakers and everyone else interested in water and food security.
Author(s): Marta Antonelli, Francesca Greco (eds.)
Series: Springer Water
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 256
Tags: Sustainable Development; Water Policy/Water Governance/Water Management; Water Industry/Water Technologies; Popular Science in Nature and Environment
Front Matter....Pages i-x
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Not All Drops of Water Are the Same....Pages 3-15
Water and Food Security: Food-water and Food Supply Value Chains....Pages 17-34
The Water Footprint: The Relation Between Human Consumption and Water Use....Pages 35-48
Front Matter....Pages 49-49
Water Resources in the Anthropocene Age: A Planetary Urgency....Pages 51-59
Water in Food....Pages 61-68
Water Sustainability and 0 km: Slow Food....Pages 69-77
Virtual Water in Diet, Shopping and Food Waste....Pages 79-89
Aware Eaters of Water: An Idea for Water Labelling....Pages 91-102
Virtual Water, H2O and the De-socialisation of Water—A Brief Anthropological Journey....Pages 103-121
The Italian Mobilisation for Water as a Commons: Moral Economy and Virtual Water....Pages 123-135
Front Matter....Pages 137-137
Water Resources in Italy: The Present Situation and Future Trends....Pages 139-143
The Globalisation of Food and Water: The Italian Case....Pages 145-158
Virtual Water Trade in the Mediterranean: Today and Tomorrow....Pages 159-174
An Economic Approach to Water Scarcity....Pages 175-186
From the BCFN’s Double Pyramid to Virtual Water in the Production of Pasta Barilla....Pages 187-206
Front Matter....Pages 207-207
The Virtual Water in a Bottle of Wine....Pages 209-228
The Water Footprint and Environmental Sustainability of Italian DOP, DOC and DOCG Food Products....Pages 229-241
Calculating the Water Footprint of an Agri-Food Company’s Supply Chain: The Mutti Case....Pages 243-256
