Flussi di acqua virtuale associati con il commercio internazionale nel settore agroalimentare: una ricostruzione geografica

The purpose of the present work is to geographically reconstruct the fluxes of virtual water associated with the international trade in the agrifood sector. The human appropriation of freshwater resources and the subsequent pressure on them is becoming increasingly cogent. Furthermore, agricultural production of food is worldwide the most water consuming activity. However, to better understand such phenomena, it appears fundamental to conduct a geographic analysis based on the adoption of a consumption-based approach. Indeed, globalisation and the ever-growing international trade of agricultural commodities and processed food have led to a situation where consumption and production result spatially disconnected. In such circumstances, consumption of certain goods results spatially disconnected from the environmental impacts caused by their production. In the case analysed, due to the uneven distribution of water resources at the global scale, international trade of agricultural goods may lead, in the end, to global water-saving. This would be verified if virtual water fluxes were directed from water-rich countries to countries with less water resources. However, international trade of agricultural commodities is determined by many factors (climatic, economic, historic, cultural, etc.) other than the protection and the efficient use of water resources at a global scale. A geographic reconstruction of such fluxes represents the first step in order to be able to read this global phenomenon taking into account these many factors. For the purpose of the present study, the CWASI database was employed. The database was developed within the research project “Coping with WAter Scarcity In a globalized world” funded by the European Research Council and led by Professor Laio (Politecnico di Torino). In particular, the data used are the ones relative to international trade of food and agricultural commodities considering the years 1995 and 2014. The innovative CWASI database addresses a relevant issue, that is the need to trace back the origin of the goods along the supply chain, explicitly taking re-export into account. In order to better understand virtual water fluxes geographies at the global level, the items in the database were divided into categories. Particularly, the main categories adopted are: cereals, oil crops, colonial crops, and meat products. The research highlights the geographies of virtual water trade associated with each category, and pinpoints their different features and peculiar characteristics. What emerges is that virtual water trade reflects major changes that occurred in the agrifood sector in the last decade. Particularly, a major driver is the increased consumption of meat, oils and fats in a growing share of the global population. This shift in consumption patterns is one of the causes of the barycentric shift of virtual water exports towards the tropics, with the emergence of Brazil and South-Eastern Asian countries as major global exporters of products derived from soybeans and oil palm. Another important outcome of the present study is that the African continent and Central America generally appear as net importers of virtual water, when not clearly peripheral to the global virtual water trade, with one exception. The category of the so-called colonial crops is the only one where major fluxes departing from these regions are identified. Further, these fluxes are principally directed to the Global North.