DUGi

The Spanish Food Industry on Global Supply Chains and Its Impact on Water Resources

http://dugi.udg.edu/item/http:@@@@hdl.handle.net@@2072@@267794

The study of the impact of economic activities on natural resources through globalsupply chains is increasingly demanded in the context of the growing globalization of economiesand product fragmentation. Taking Spain as a case study and a sector with significant economicand environmental impacts, the agri-food industry, the objective of this work is two-fold.First, we estimate the associated water impact, both from the production and consumptionperspectives, paying special attention to the water embodied in production exchanges amongcountries and sectors. To that aim, we use an environmentally-extended multiregionalinput-output model (MRIO). Second, we assess the main driving factors behind changes indirect and embodied water consumption between the years 1995 and 2009 by means of astructural decomposition analysis. The MRIO model provides a comprehensive estimate ofthe economic linkages among regions and economic sectors and, therefore, allows calculatingthe environmental impacts over international value chains. The results indicate that the foodindustry exerts large impacts on global water resources, particularly given the remarkableinteractions with the domestic and foreign agricultural sectors, These growing linkages showhow consumption patterns, and, therefore, lifestyles, involve large environmental impactsthrough the whole and global supply chains

MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)