NoonTalk@DIATI 22 - Water resources for agriculture: Water footprint and beyond
ABSTRACT
The concept of water footprint has been developed to quantify the human use of freshwater resources. This composite and spatially-distributed indicator enables a great variety of analyses related to the water-food nexus.
They include: assessment of water uses by source, improvements of crop water-use efficiency, development of sustainability indicators, modelling of food and water crises, socio-economic aspects of virtual water trade, environmental implications of food consumption and waste. In this presentation, an overview of recent and ongoing studies about these topics, carried out at the DIATI, will be given.
Future developments will also be outlined, in line with personal interests and research directions about and beyond the water footprint indicator. The subject, intrinsically multidisciplinary, integrates aspects of water science and management, agronomy and economics, and it may intersect interests inside and outside the environmental engineering.
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