The water footprint and virtual water exports of Spanish tomatoes

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D. CHICO et al. 7to final consumers, businesses and policymakers in general.From a global perspective, about 86% of all water is usedto grow food (Hoekstra and Chapagain, 2008). Parallel tothis, food choices can have a big impact on water demand.From the production perspective, agriculture has to competewith other water users like the environment, municipalitiesand industries (UNESCO, 2006).In Spain, tomato production represents 5% of the grossnational agricultural production with a yearly average productionof about 4 million tons in 62,939 ha. In economicterms, tomato production represents a 6.6 % of the gross nationalagricultural production in the study period (MARM,2010b). Of this production, around 25% is exported eachyear, mainly to the European Markets as fresh tomato(Reche, 2009). Tomato production in Spain represents 1.5%of the total Spanish water footprint (Garrido et al., 2010).The main producing areas are the Guadiana Valley in southwestSpain, and the southeast corner in the provinces ofAlmería, Murcia and Granada (Figure 1). These two regionsare quite different in their production methods. The Guadianavalley produces almost exclusively open-air, irrigatedtomatoes (Campillo, 2007) for the food industry (i.e. inputfor tomato sauce and powder transformation), using surfacewater from the Guadiana valley (CHG, 2008; Aldaya andLlamas, 2009), whereas the southeast region, mainly thecoastal plain of Almería province, has developed the highestconcentration of greenhouses in a particular area of theworld (Castilla, 2009). Its dynamic production has evolvedfrom primary greenhouses to more complex and developedgrowing systems that produce high quality horticulturalcrops for export throughout the year (García 2009), almostexclusively out of groundwater (Regional Government of Andalusia2003). Along these two regions, tomato productionwas traditionally significant in other parts of the country,where, although declining, tomato production is still impor-
8 THE WATER FOOTPRINT OF TOMATO PRODUCTIONFIGURE 1. Tomato producing provinces with the proportion of productionand system in each province. The size of the pie charts is proportional tothe annual production of the provinceSource MARM (2009).tant. These regions include the Canary Islands, the Mediterraneancoast (Alicante, Valencia, Castellón and Balearesprovinces) and the Ebro valley. In these areas, especially inthe Canary Islands and the Ebro valley, this crop has a significantimportance for the regional economy (Maroto, 2002;Suárez, 2002).The concept of the ‘water footprint’ has been proposed asan indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirectwater use of a consumer or producer (Hoekstra,2003). The water footprint is a comprehensive indicator offreshwater resources use, complementary to measures of directwater withdrawal. The water footprint of a product is
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The water footprint and virtual water exports of Spanish tomatoes

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