Quantifying the water footprint of an urban agglomeration in developing economy

Koteswar, D and Chandrasekharam, Dornadula (2019) Quantifying the water footprint of an urban agglomeration in developing economy. Sustainable Cities and Society, 50. p. 101686. ISSN 22106707

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Abstract

Sustainable conservation of natural resources has become a primary concern for urban cities, globally as they are centers of consumption and economy. Due to population growth, cities depend more on imports of food, energy, water, and services from all over the globe, and consume more virtual water than direct water, because of their food habits and lifestyle. Most of the imported goods are water intensive and pose challenges in tracing the source of virtual water. The goal of this research is to develop a general framework to assess the water footprint (WF) of a typical city in India using existing databases. A consumer-centric approach has been adopted for assessing WF in Hyderabad Metro Development Area (HMDA). The variation of the WF across economic classes of consumers is also analyzed. The WF is estimated based on four broad categories: 1) food consumption, 2) fossil fuels based energy, 3) electric power, and 4) direct water. Average WF of HMDA region is 1041 m3/cap/year (2852 LPCD), in which 70% (1986 LPCD) of WF was consumed by food, 25% (744 LPCD) by electric power, only 4% (121 LPCD) is from direct water consumption and surprisingly the contribution from fossil fuel WF to total per capita WF of HMDA area is less than 1%.

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IITH Creators:

IITH Creators	ORCiD
Chandrasekharam, Dornadula	UNSPECIFIED

Item Type:

Article

Additional Information:

Provides information on dependency of urban cities on external water resources to alert the governments. • Helps to monitor consumption WF of urban dwellers based on economic status and consumption quantity to plan VW trade policies for water intensive products. Helps to frame water policies and strategies to reduce WFs, based on consumption of water intensive goods. Assists policy makers to make foreign trade policies for highly consuming and water intensive products by affluent and non-affluent population. Resolves transboundary water conflicts and releases pressure on water resources by sharing water virtually or in the form of VW trades.

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Urban water footprint,Urban agglomeration,Virtual water,Consumption footprint,Trade policy

Subjects:

Civil Engineering

Divisions:

Department of Civil Engineering

Depositing User:

Team Library

Date Deposited:

22 Jul 2019 06:58

Last Modified:

23 Jul 2019 04:07