Creating the Virtual Water Network for Global Energy Trade
Abstract
The world's energy resources are shared through trade across the globe. This network of energy trade, which in many cases leads to increased energy access, includes a network of virtually traded water used to produce energy commodities. Given the projected increases in water stress and potential shifts in the energy sector, this work enhances our understanding of water embedded in energy trade. We combine global data on energy trade from the United Nations and water consumption for energy commodities from literature to quantify the virtual water embedded in global energy trade from 2012 to 2018 at the country level. The trade network structure is relatively stable over time, but the total virtual water trade increased 35% between 2012 and 2018. The trade of oil and fuelwood were consistent drivers of virtual water trade. The trade of coal, hydrocarbons, and charcoal are much less influential, contributing less than 4% of virtually traded water over the 7-year period. Despite the infrastructure constraints, electricity trade contributes notably to virtual water trade, mostly driven by water consumption for hydroelectricity. We discuss building the trade network, data issues and validation, and present quantitative results for the virtual water trade of energy.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMH145.0007P
- Keywords:
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- 1847 Modeling;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1878 Water/energy interactions;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 6344 System operation and management;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES