Water Footprint as a Tool to Select Host Country for Global Water Events
Abstract
Global water events are organized at a regular interval to discuss the issues of water resources management for global, regional and local water security. The events, in this study, refer to conferences, congresses, summits, forums and meetings; participated by above 1,000 people from 20 plus countries in different geographic regions of the world. The events, in addition to other advantages, could contribute in global water savings if the host countries are carefully selected. For practical applicability of the concept, this paper considers water footprint as a tool, proposes a methodology for estimating water footprints of the global water events and demonstrates the methodology with case studies of selected global water events. The study results show that World Water Week (WWW, 2010) and 13th IWRA-World Water Congress (IWRA-WWC) had negative water footprints, i.e. have lost some amount of water resources from the global water system which is approximately equivalent to yearly water demands of 90 and 215 persons respectively. If the same events were held in other low-water-footprint countries (e.g., Hungary for WWW and China for IWRA-WWC), water resources equivalent to the yearly water demands of 1,190 and 500 persons respectively could have been saved. Therefore, application of this tool to select host countries for the future episodes of the events would contribute in global water security.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFMGC13A0967P
- Keywords:
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- 1880 HYDROLOGY / Water management