Environmentally informed virtual water trade: a framework to assess water-food-energy nexus at the regional scale

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Many water security challenges occur predominantly at regional scale, yet beyond the borders of river basins and local communities. The virtual water trade (VWT) is a promising regional water management approach that promotes the flow of water-intensive commodities from water-abundant to water-scarce regions. However, the majority of VWT studies 1) have been conducted at the global level, only concerning the international food trade, where studies of water-food-energy (WFE) dynamics at the sub-country level are not considered; 2) have not systematically studied spatiotemporal dynamics of water quantity differentiating green from blue, and fossil from renewable water in the assessment of both water supply and consumption; and 3) have not assessed the environmental impacts of VWT including water quality degradation in the same analytical framework. All of these theoretical gaps have contributed to a large uncertainty in the feasibility of the VWT in regional water management. ******I propose to study the virtual water issues at the sub-country level, by taking Canadian Prairie Region as a case study. I plan to examine an "environmentally informed VWT (EI-VWT)" by considering natural physical processes and anthropogenic factors affecting the WFE and trade relationships. ***The short-term (5 yrs) goal of my DG research program is to adapt ecohydro(geo)logical models, to assess dynamics of water, food, and trade relationships; and to develop a framework to examine the feasibility of EI-VWT as a management option at the sub-country level. My specific objectives are the spatial explicit and temporal assessments of: ******(1) Water supply, physical crop yield, and crop water consumption discriminating blue, green, fossil and renewable resources at a regional scale. Multi-model comparison and integration/improvement of the key processes into regional models including glacier, frozen soil, groundwater interactions, as well as climate change impacts will be tested.***(2) Water quality, including nutrient and sediment load and transport, at the regional scale.***(3) Water, food, and trade dynamics for the examination of EI-VWT.******The long-term (5-15 yrs) goal of my HQP driven research program is to advance the framework by integration of 1) processes related to energy production and trade, and their cumulative impacts; 2) socioeconomic factors and local conditions that are important in shaping regional WFE, and trade policies; and 3) extreme events under both high frequency and lower frequency climatic oscillations.***The proposed research will address knowledge gaps that of an integrated understanding of water quantity and quality processes and relation with dynamics of WFE trade in the examination of VWT strategy for regional water management. This study is unique one of the first in VWT literature in terms of comprehensiveness, integration, and approaches examined in an export-oriented region of diverse natural and economic conditions (e.g. Western Canada).**