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4. Virtual Water Trade

This post builds upon previous discussions of water scarcity and food security through exploring virtual water trade (VWT) as a potential solution to insufficient infrastructure and agriculture yield gaps in Africa.

Despite Africa’s relative abundance of renewable freshwater resources at approximately 6800 m3 per person per year (Odularu, 2009), high temporal and spatial water resource variability accompanied with scarce irrigation infrastructure and dam capacity (Konar and Caylor, 2013) has resulted in increased agriculture vulnerability to climate change and variability (Boko et al., 2007). Furthermore, agricultural yields have generally been low across Africa, such as in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bjornlund et al., 2020), due to underinvestment and a lack of incentive in production, research, development, and extension services (FAO, 2009), with rising temperatures having already claimed a 34% decline in Africa’s agricultural productivity growth since 1961 (WMO, 2022). Therefore, VWT is also explored as a potential solution to mitigating climate and price driven vulnerabilities in agricultural production (Konar and Caylor, 2013).

VWT refers to water resources embodied in traded commodities, with such trading enabling countries to indirectly share infrastructure efficiently through decreasing direct economic costs associated with developing the infrastructure itself (Konar and Caylor, 2013). VWT within, exported, and imported by Africa totaled 3.59 km3, 1.18 km3, and 61.67 km3 respectively in 2008 (Konar and Caylor, 2013). Figure 1 illustrates the intra-African VWT network.


Figure 1: Intra-African virtual water trade network. The color of trade links corresponds to the exporting country (Konar and Caylor, 2013).


Despite intra-African VWT being small relative to the continent’s expansive area, water savings derived from VWT are disproportionately large given savings (9.14 km3) exceeded losses (0.44 km3) by a multiple of 20.8x, as illustrated in Figure 2 (Konar and Caylor, 2013). Furthermore, intra-Africa VWT is significantly more efficient in terms of water savings to total internal trade (2.5x) and water savings to losses (20.8x) compared to the global average of 0.57x and 5.20x respectively, as illustrated in Figure 3 (Konar and Caylor, 2013).


Figure 2: (A) Intra-African water losses from VWT and (B) Intra-African water savings from VWT, figures not to scale (Konar and Caylor, 2013).


Figure 3: Illustration of water saving to trade (green) and water saving to losses (blue) ratios across the globe (Konar and Caylor, 2013).

Across Africa, imports of virtual water and openness to VWT are associated with greater human development, reduced undernourishment, and improved food security (Konar and Caylor, 2013). However, despite intra-African VWT’s world-leading efficiency, it does not conform to the broader global trend of being correlated with improved agricultural water use efficiency (Konar and Caylor, 2013). 

Therefore, while I found VWT increasingly promising as a means to address water and food security in Africa, it is evident that VWT alone is inadequate in addressing the current condition of low agricultural productivity and yields. Additional policies should complement VWT, encouraging investments in agricultural infrastructure, conflict resolution mechanisms, and local community-based systems, as discussed in previous blogs. What concerns me most is the feedback cycle of pre-existing food insecurity with low agricultural productivity and yields: undernourishment is generally accompanied by lower investment in capital stock relative to population growth, further decreasing productivity and exacerbating hunger (FAO, 2009). Somehow, policymakers must find novel sources of private, public, and international financing or risk falling even further behind in technology and productivity. The next blog explores potential sources of funding at an international level through the recent COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

Comments

  1. Niuni AmarasingheDecember 21, 2023 at 4:15 PM

    This was a very interesting read since I had not been exposed to the concept of Virtual Water Trade! The Figure 1 you included about the VWT network is really fascinating to see to show the interdependence of water within Africa and the benefits that can be extrapolated from this.
    In your research, did you come across a particular case study of how the VWT has been utilised in Africa?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JJanuary 1, 2024 at 3:00 PM

      Dear Niuni, thank you for your kind comments. A case study I particularly found interesting was that of Botswana. Botswana utilizes VWT though its relatively high level of food imports given that a significant proportion of the country lies within the Kalahari Desert with low levels of domestic agricultural production that are insufficient to meet the country's domestic consumption (IFAD, 2012 cited in Konar and Caylor, 2013). You can read more about the case study alongside many other examples in the Konar and Caylor, 2013 resource cited in the blog post!

      Delete
  2. Yi Xi KangDecember 31, 2023 at 12:47 AM

    Great idea to include the intra-Africa VWT, in my own blog post I had only considered international VWT. Truly an economic geographer :) Anyway, I hope that you can include more links to your previous posts, especially the first post which displayed the climate and weather variabilities of Africa. What I found interesting from Figures 4 and 5 of your first post is that Malawi and Mozambique seem to be relatively unaffected in temperature and rainfall anomalies, so it is surprising that VWT between these 2 countries are the largest within the continent.

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    Replies
    1. JJanuary 4, 2024 at 11:16 PM

      Dear Yi Xi, thank you for your positive comment. I replied to one of your earlier comments in my first blog post indicating that I have implemented your suggestion to link subsequent posts back to the first one, given that climatic conditions underpin most of the discussion in subsequent posts. Your astute observation with respect to Malawi and Mozambique is interesting: the resource by (Konar and Caylor, 2013) above posits that the efficient VWT system in Africa may be compensating for lackluster local productivity. Therefore, a possible explanation for the relatively high VWT between Malawi and Mozambique despite their apparent lack of climatic anomalies may be due to low levels of local productivity, although this was not specifically explored in the study.

      Delete
  3. Arun PatelJanuary 5, 2024 at 5:54 PM

    This is a really interesting blog. I really liked how you showed us the virtual water trade within Africa as well. Do you think the virtual water trade will suit African communities more than more practical solutions such as groundwater extraction or GM crops, in tackling food insecurity and climate change?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yiyi ZhangJanuary 7, 2024 at 5:47 PM

    Very interesting blog focusing on the intra-Africa VMT, I really enjoy reading this! Great choice of images and accompanied explanations. To enhance this blog, I think you could probably focus on a specific case study, examining how VMT has been utilized! Well done.

    ReplyDelete

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