Article Reviews: Water Feature

摘要

At the time this paper was written, Chapagain held the position of Science Director within the 'Water Footprint Network' (WFN). Since its inception, the WFN has supported efforts to calculate total water consumed within a product, by companies and industries, and within geographical regions including nations. These efforts culminated in the development of a comprehensive methodology for measuring the total water 'footprint' (WF) of any process, product, household, organisation, community, or location in 2011. This current paper now explores the challenges and successes that users have experienced in seeking implementation. In publishing this paper, the authors are presumably also seeking to further promote their well-developed WF tool and the WFN's position as a repository of water expertise. The paper provides a useful overview of the methodology, its history, suggested uses, and recent efforts to complete a range of WF calculations (all largely undertaken by the authors and colleagues from the WFN). Egan (2011) anticipated that implementation was likely to be difficult and so it is helpful to now have a paper that overviews operational challenges. Another key question at this point is; how are governments, corporations and households drawing on WF data to aid effective policy and consumption decisions? The authors also explore this question and conclude that for now, WF calculations have probably done little more than raise general awareness. The paper explains that a key user group has been the corporate sector but notes that companies remain uncertain of what to do with the potentially over simplified messages in this single volumetric measure. The paper acknowledges that while shocking volumetric calculations might 'grab the headlines' (p. 576), they provide no insight into contextual issues. Egan (2011, 181) expressed concern at the time that the methodology was published arguing quantitative measures of this nature 'may mean little unless they can be assured and complemented with qualitative explanations'.