“Virtual water”: An unfolding concept in integrated water resources management
“Virtual water”: An unfolding concept in integrated water resources management
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DOI：
10.1029/2007wr006048
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发表时间：
2007-12
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Hong Yang;A. Zehnder
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Hong Yang;A. Zehnder
从最广泛的意义上讲，虚拟水是指生产粮食商品所需的水。自20世纪90年代中期以来，虚拟水问题引起了科学界和政治界的广泛关注。本文对虚拟水研究的主要问题和成果进行了综述，并指出了虚拟水研究中存在的问题和未来的研究方向。我们的结论是，虚拟水的研究有助于提高认识的水资源短缺及其对粮食安全的影响，并提高粮食贸易的作用，在补偿缺水的理解。然而，到目前为止，绝大多数研究都与国际粮食贸易有关，许多研究仅量化了与粮食贸易相关的虚拟水流量。解决缺水和粮食不安全问题的政策普遍缺乏直接关联性，而这些问题往往是地方、区域和河流流域的问题。虚拟水概念基础的模糊性也带来了一些混乱。研究的方法和数据库往往很粗糙，影响了结果的稳健性和可靠性。展望未来，今后的虚拟水研究需要加强与国家和区域水资源管理的联系，从而提高政策的相关性。同时，在评估虚拟水战略在应对水资源短缺方面的利弊时，有必要采取综合方法，考虑蓝色和绿色水资源可用性的空间和时间变化以及自然、社会经济和政治条件的复杂性。为此，跨学科的努力和量化方法，并辅之以更好的数据可用性，是非常重要的。
In its broadest sense, virtual water refers to the water required for the production of food commodities. Issues relating to virtual water have drawn much attention in scientific communities and the political sphere since the mid 1990s. This paper provides a critical review of major research issues and results in the virtual water literature and pinpoints the remaining questions and the direction of research in future virtual water studies. We conclude that virtual water studies have helped to raise the awareness of water scarcity and its impact on food security and to improve the understanding of the role of food trade in compensating for water deficit. However, the studies so far have been overwhelmingly concerned with the international food trade, and many solely quantified virtual water flows associated with food trade. There is a general lack of direct policy relevance to the solutions to water scarcity and food insecurity, which are often local, regional, and river basin issues. The obscurity in the conceptual basis of virtual water also entails some confusion. The methodologies and databases of the studies are often crude, affecting the robustness and reliability of the results. Looking ahead, future virtual water studies need to enhance the policy relevance by strengthening their linkages with national and regional water resources management. Meanwhile, integrated approaches taking into consideration the spatial and temporal variations of blue and green water resources availability and the complexity of natural, socioeconomic, and political conditions are necessary in assessing the trade‐offs of the virtual water strategy in dealing with water scarcity. To this end, interdisciplinary efforts and quantitative methods supported by improved data availability are greatly important.