Water Resources Research // High‐Resolution Water Footprints of Production of the United States
By: Yufei Ao Megan Konar Mesfin M. Mekonnen Arjen Y. Hoekstra. This study broadly contributes to the understanding of water in the U.S. economy, enables supply chain managers to assess direct and indirect water dependencies, and provides opportunities to reduce water use through benchmarking. In fact, it finds that 94% of U.S. industries could reduce their total water footprint more by sourcing from more water‐efficient suppliers in their supply chain than they could by converting their own operations to be more water‐efficient.
The United States is the largest producer of goods and services in the world. Rainfall, surface water supplies, and groundwater aquifers represent a fundamental input to economic production. Despite the importance of water resources to economic activity, there is a lack of consistent information on water use for specific locations and economic sectors. A national, spatially detailed database of water use by sector would provide insight into U.S. utilisation and dependence on water resources for economic production. To this end, the authors calculate the water footprint of over 500 food, energy, mining, services, and manufacturing industries and goods produced in the United States. To do this, they employ a data intensive approach that integrates water footprint and input‐output techniques into a novel methodological framework. This approach enables them to present the most detailed and comprehensive water footprint analysis of any country to date.
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AGU Publications (e-purchase)
Published
6 February 2018
In
Water Resources Journal. AGU Publications. Volume54, Issue3. March 2018. Pages 2288-2316.