Water Footprint
The concept of virtual water trade was introduced to refer to the idea that countries can save domestic water by importing food. Imported food, however, comes from somewhere. In 2002, professor Arjen Y. Hoekstra, at the time working for UNESCO-IHE, now at University of Twente, the Netherlands, introduced the concept of water footprint. The water footprint shows the link between consumer goods or a consumption pattern and water use and pollution. Virtual water trade and water footprint can be seen as part of a bigger story: the globalization of water.
Read more about this topic: Virtual Water
Famous quotes containing the words water and/or footprint:
“What a dissimilarity we see in walking, swimming, and flying. And yet it is one and the same motion: it is just that the load- bearing capacity of the earth differs from that of the water, and that that of the water differs from that of the air! Thus we should also learn to fly as thinkers—and not imagine that we are thereby becoming idle dreamers!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains its maxims. It has no temple, nor even a solitary column. There goes a rumor that the earth is inhabited, but the shipwrecked mariner has not seen a footprint on the shore. The hunter has found only fragments of pottery and the monuments of inhabitants.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)