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Research Article

Limits to the world’s green water resources for food, feed, fiber, timber, and bioenergy

View ORCID ProfileJoep F. Schyns, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, View ORCID ProfileMartijn J. Booij, Rick J. Hogeboom, and View ORCID ProfileMesfin M. Mekonnen
PNAS March 12, 2019 116 (11) 4893-4898; first published February 25, 2019; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817380116
Joep F. Schyns
aTwente Water Centre, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands;
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  • ORCID record for Joep F. Schyns
  • For correspondence: j.f.schyns@utwente.nl a.y.hoekstra@utwente.nl
Arjen Y. Hoekstra
aTwente Water Centre, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands;
bInstitute of Water Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, 259770, Singapore;
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  • For correspondence: j.f.schyns@utwente.nl a.y.hoekstra@utwente.nl
Martijn J. Booij
aTwente Water Centre, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands;
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Rick J. Hogeboom
aTwente Water Centre, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands;
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Mesfin M. Mekonnen
cRobert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583
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  1. Edited by Peter H. Gleick, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, Oakland, CA, and approved January 23, 2019 (received for review October 10, 2018)

This article has a Letter. Please see:

  • Rainfall recycling needs to be considered in defining limits to the world’s green water resources - April 09, 2019

See related content:

  • Reply to van Noordwijk and Ellison: Moisture recycling: Key to assess hydrological impacts of land cover changes, but not to quantify water allocation to competing demands
    - Apr 09, 2019
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Significance

Precipitation over land partitions into runoff via surface water and groundwater (blue water) and evapotranspiration (green water). We expand the traditional debate on water scarcity, which solely focuses on blue water, by assessing green water scarcity. The current debate on water scarcity is heavily skewed, since it leaves unnoticed the bulk of water availability––which is green––and the bulk of water use––which is also green. Green water is the main source of water to produce food, feed, fiber, timber, and bioenergy. Thus, to understand how freshwater scarcity constrains the production of these vital goods, explicating and including (limits to) green water use is imperative.

Abstract

Green water––rainfall over land that eventually flows back to the atmosphere as evapotranspiration––is the main source of water to produce food, feed, fiber, timber, and bioenergy. To understand how freshwater scarcity constrains production of these goods, we need to consider limits to the green water footprint (WFg), the green water flow allocated to human society. However, research traditionally focuses on scarcity of blue water––groundwater and surface water. Here we expand the debate on water scarcity by considering green water scarcity (WSg). At 5 × 5 arc-minute spatial resolution, we quantify WFg and the maximum sustainable level to this footprint (WFg,m), while accounting for green water requirements to support biodiversity. We then estimate WSg per country as the ratio of the national aggregate WFg to the national aggregate WFg,m. We find that globally WFg amounts to 56% of WFg,m, and overshoots it in several places, for example in countries in Europe, Central America, the Middle East, and South Asia. The sustainably available green water flows in these countries are mostly or fully allocated to human activities (predominately agriculture and forestry), occasionally at the cost of green water flows earmarked for nature. By ignoring limits to the growing human WFg, we risk further loss of ecosystem values that depend on the remaining untouched green water flows. We emphasize that green water is a critical and limited resource that should explicitly be part of any assessment of water scarcity, food security, or bioenergy potential.

  • green water
  • water scarcity
  • water footprint
  • water consumption
  • water sustainability

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: j.f.schyns{at}utwente.nl or a.y.hoekstra{at}utwente.nl.
  • Author contributions: J.F.S., A.Y.H., and M.J.B. designed research; J.F.S. performed research; J.F.S. and R.J.H. analyzed data; and J.F.S., A.Y.H., M.J.B., R.J.H., and M.M.M. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1817380116/-/DCSupplemental.

  • Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).

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Limits to the world’s green water resources for food, feed, fiber, timber, and bioenergy
Joep F. Schyns, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Martijn J. Booij, Rick J. Hogeboom, Mesfin M. Mekonnen
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 2019, 116 (11) 4893-4898; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1817380116

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Limits to the world’s green water resources for food, feed, fiber, timber, and bioenergy
Joep F. Schyns, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Martijn J. Booij, Rick J. Hogeboom, Mesfin M. Mekonnen
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 2019, 116 (11) 4893-4898; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1817380116
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