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Not All Drops of Water Are the Same Read chapter Read first chapter

2015 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Aware Eaters of Water: An Idea for Water Labelling

Authors : Francesca Greco, Marta Antonelli

Published in: The Water We Eat

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Food represents 90 % of the water consumption of an individual and the agricultural sector uses on average 70 % of the freshwater withdrawn from surface and aquifers for irrigation purposes globally. From the perspective of a sustainable growth, oriented towards optimizing the use of green water and reducing that of blue water, i.e. irrigation waste and inefficiencies, it is essential to raise citizens’ awareness and promote more sustainable consumption. For this purpose, this contribution will discuss the possibility of guiding the commercial choices we, the citizens, make by means of a method for labelling water sustainability. This hypothesis of labelling provides “qualitative” information on the typology and origin of the water used to produce any type of food we consume.

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previous chapter Virtual Water in Diet, Shopping and Food Waste
next chapter Virtual Water, H2O and the De-socialisation of Water—A Brief Anthropological Journey
Footnotes
1
Concerning environmental information, it is important to distinguish between two categories. The first is defined as compliance-oriented and refers to all the information for administrative–bureaucratic purposes which are not aimed at influencing consumer choice in purchasing but are addressed to the control institutions or entities. The second category, instead, refers to market-oriented information, with the purpose of influencing the consumer to take, when purchasing, the most aware decision possible. Labels, just as information spread through advertising or found on product packaging, are also included in this category (Crivellaro et al. 2012).
 
2
For example, the Water Footprint Network often reports its data, comparing the water footprints of North America, the world average and the African continent (Mekonnen and Hoekstra 2011).
 
3
Recently in Italy, only the Turin Polytechnic (“Water in Food” Group) and the Milan Polytechnic have been active in research on virtual water and water footprinting, but two European projects have been set up which will keep the research going over the next years—the EURO-AGRIWAT project, coordinated by the University of Florence, and the ViWaN project (The global Virtual Water Network).
 
4
See the info-graphics available on the Website www.​angelamorelli.​com/​water/​.​
 
5
For further details on a qualitative view of water footprinting, see the concept of the “extended water footprint”(Rodríguez Cabellos 2011).
 
6
Presentation on “Water and food security: which solutions?” during the World Water Week in Stockholm (2011).
 
7
Context-based water footprint implements proper water footprint accounting in the context of a country or organization (Hoekstra 2013).
 
8
In Hoekstra’s global study on blue water scarcity per basin, it was assumed maximum sustainable blue water footprint levels at 20 per cent of natural runoff across river basins (Hoekstra et al. 2012).
 
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Metadata
Title
Aware Eaters of Water: An Idea for Water Labelling
Authors
Francesca Greco
Marta Antonelli
Copyright Year
2015
Book
The Water We Eat

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16392-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-16393-2

Copyright Year: 2015

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16393-2_8