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Hoekstra, A.Y. and Chapagain, A.K. “The water footprints of Morocco and the Netherlands: Global water use as a result of domestic consumption of agricultural commodities,” Ecological Economics, Volume 64, Issue 1, Pages 143-151. 2007.

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Article

Estimating Virtual Water Trade in Crops for Saudi Arabia

1Department of Agricultural Economics, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA


American Journal of Water Resources. 2019, Vol. 7 No. 1, 16-22
DOI: 10.12691/ajwr-7-1-3
Copyright © 2019 Science and Education Publishing

Cite this paper:
Yosef Alamri, Michael Reed. Estimating Virtual Water Trade in Crops for Saudi Arabia. American Journal of Water Resources. 2019; 7(1):16-22. doi: 10.12691/ajwr-7-1-3.

Correspondence to: Yosef  Alamri, Department of Agricultural Economics, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Email: yosef.alamri@uky.edu

Abstract

Using the concept of virtual water introduced by Allan 1994 and developed by Hoekstra and Hung (2002), we estimate virtual water trade for 20 crops of Saudi Arabia during 2000-2016. Our result shows the average virtual water trade was 12.6 billion m3/year. Saudi had net virtual water imports, with the most significant virtual water import for cereals & alfalfa and vegetable; and there is a virtual water export of fruit. Saudi virtual water trade reduced pressure on water resources by 54%. Distance plays a role in Saudi virtual water export; we found that more than 90% of exports go to neighboring countries, including 45% to GCC countries. On the other hand, more than 40% of virtual water imports came from Asia.

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