The answer for hydropolitics?

Below will explore some barriers and possibilities in implementing this concept. Figure 1 summarises the two camps in the literature, the optimists/idealists vs the pessimists/realists on which the debate is based.

Trade.

- VWT presumes ease of market change, assuming a ‘free market’, which Warner views as ‘fiction’[8]. It is based on laws of comparative advantage (in soil moisture) yet in reality comparative advantage is distorted by subsidies, tariffs and WTO regulations – favouring the Global North. The improbability of changing global markets due to power inequalities is ignored by the concept.

- Market alteration may have short-term negative impacts for the economy. Politics is short-term and so moves that would jepordize support are unlikely, demonstrating that ‘political choices can go against water-saving developments’[9]. For example, Namibia should not logically produce beef or coffee (figure 2) but to stop would be economically damaging and to import them, expensive.

Figure 2: Virtual Water Footprint of products.

Source: [10]

- The VW concept is problematic as it moves markets rather than alters supply and demand issues. For example, it would advocate Namibia importing beef from temperate rain-fed regions. It ignores that producing meat at current scales is more detrimental to the environment than any other industry[11], overlooking that producing water intensive grain for cattle destroys land, mirroring the destruction of land by the cattle it feeds[12].

- However, scaling down to regional levels such as between SADC members shows more promise; the water abundant Northern members could export VW to the arid South. Unfortunately, economic inequality, political instability and poor transport connections across the region currently limits this.[13]

Politics.

- Allan praised his concept for its ‘political and economic invisibility’[14]. This depolitises an inherently political resource and suggests top-down, undemocratic bypassing of people.

- The concept assumes food scarcity occurs because of water scarcity. However, shortages have been caused by companies hoarding stocks to manipulate price [15]. Moreover, no famine has ever occurred in a functioning democracy,[16] suggesting politics has everything to do with water and food availability.

Final Remarks.

The VW concept is part of the picture in stable water futures (especially for countries with variable precipitation over time and space) and particularly in regional blocs, but it alone is not a ‘fix’. However, it is problematic as it is based on an ideal image of reality where markets are free and apolitical, yet actually many go as far to argue that the system works to maintain global structural inequality[17]. Furthermore, I find it hard to reconcile with a concept that solely moves a problem without challenging the problem itself (e.g. meat production) – this will not solve the bigger issue at hand.

---

[1] J.A. Allan. The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy, I.B.Tauris: London, 2000.

[2] A.R. Turton. ‘Water Scarcity and Social Adaptive Capacity’, Water Issues Study Group, MEWREW Occasional Paper No.9, 1999, p. 5.

[3] G-M. Lange and R. M. Hassan, The Economics of Water Management in Southern Africa’, Edward Elgar: London, 2006, p. 44.

[4] G-M. Lange and R.M. Hassan, p. 44.

[5] A. Y. Hoekstra and P. Q Hung, ‘A quantification of virtual water flows between nations in relation to international crop trade’, in Virtual Water Trade, A. Y. Hoekstra (ed.), IHE Delft: Netherlands 2003, p. 43.

[6] G-M. Lange and R. M. Hassan, p. 44.

[7] J. Warner., ‘Virtual water- virtual benefits? Scarcity, distribution security and conflict reconsidered’ in ‘Virtual Water Trade’, Hoekstra, A.Y. (ed). IHE Delft: Netherlands, 2003, p. 127.

[8] J. Warner, , p. 129.

[9] J. Warner, p.129.

[10] Virtual Water, ‘Virtual Water Foorprint of Products’, Virtual Water EU, N/A, viewed on 12^th January 2016, http://virtualwater.eu/

[11] Cowspiracy, dir. K. Anderson and K. Kuhn, n/a, USA, 2014.

[12] G. Monbiot, lecture, 17^th December 2015.

[13] A. Earle and A. Turton, ‘The Virtual Water Trade Amongst the Countries of the SADC’, reconsidered’ in ‘Virtual Water Trade’, Hoekstra, A.Y. (ed). IHE Delft: Netherlands, 2003, p. 196.

[14] J. A. Allan, 'Water in the Environment/Socio-Economic Development Discourse: Sustainability, Changing Management Paradigms and Policy Responses in a Global System',Government and Opposition vol. 40:2, 2005, p. 185.

[15] M. Ritchie, ‘Free Trade versus Sustainable Agriculture: The Implications of NAFTA.’, The Ecologist, 22, p224.

[16] A. Sen, Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1999, p. 16.

[17] A. G. Frank, Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America, Monthly Review Press: New York, 1967.