Such water saving methodology (Virtual water) will be much needed in those countries that are currently experiencing water stress and water scarcity, and where climate change will cause further stress on water resources. Is there any country/countries that is in agreement or accepted such approach (i.e. goods and services are exchanged)? In this regard, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would be most in need of such approach since food production in these two regions will be most affected due to climate change. What’s about recycling of wastewater, and harvesting of rainwater as part of water savings?

Dear Raghavendra,

Thanks a lot for purposing this topic. As you said water saving via virtual water concept is an issue of great concern. But one of the most important drawbacks of this methodology is that we can not rely on crop imports with great confidence. As you know There will be more and more countries having water and food-safety problems in the future. Therefore they themselves may have problems with growing crops and having enough freshwater for irrigation. It's not actually a sustainable solution to rely on crop imports from other countries since they may have their own water and food problems and therefore couldn't satisfy our needs. In my opinion, the best way to save freshwater and have a sustainable development is related to water policy in our own country.

I agree with Golam Kibria

The amount of water a product virtually takes to end up in your feast or hand is called virtual water. For example 1 kg of rice needs 3000 liters of water, but you may not be using water in the same proportion while irrigating the paddy crop, infact it would be substantially lesser in magnitude.

If you know the amount of this virtual water requirement for a particular product, you may avoid to produce it in water scarce region and can import it from other water rich regions. One can say it is similar to "Inter-Basin Water Transfer" where you are importing the product of high virtual water requirement instead of water from another river basins, while choosing the appropriate product of lesser virtual water requirement to produce at your place.

How biotechnology techniques and nanotechnology techniques can enhance/support virtual water concept?

If biotechnology/nanotechnology techniques will support virtual water concept how it will be useful?

I doubt if Biotechnology or Nanotechnology can really have any role in virtual water concept.

Hope fellow researchers would add their views in this discussion.

Hi Deepak,

Here is the applications of biotechnology in virtual water concept /water scarcity.

To improve the efficiency of water use in agriculture, all the sequential steps in the water use pathways need to be considered in an integrated approach as it is more effective to make modest improvements in several of these steps than major improvements in just one or two steps. For some of them (e.g. involving the movement of irrigation water from the reservoir to the farm), improvements can be made by non-biological means only while others are influenced by both biological (e.g. physical characteristics of the crop) and non-biological (e.g. air temperature) factors. Several of the steps are shared in different water use pathways in agriculture.

Water scarcity and drought is a problem for many economically developed countries (e.g. Australia, United States) as well as many developing countries, so both public research organisations as well as private breeding companies in developed countries have invested considerable resources into investigating the genetic mechanisms controlling crop water use, albeit in a relatively limited number of crop species.

Reference:

http://www.fao.org/biotech/c14doc.htm