Abstract
The Climate Resilient Infrastructure Development Facility (CRIDF) has developed a data platform for Virtual Water transfers amongst the 12 continental countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and with the rest of the world, embedded in agricultural products and in electricity supplies. This, together with a Global Social and Development Index database, has formed the basis for many of the analyses in other Chapters of this book. This Chapter provides a summary of the processes and source data used in developing develop the databases, as well as some examples of the potential use of the data platform. The final section provides a brief summary of the techniques involved in economic accounting of water, and the current position of the continental SADC countries in that regard. Notably, economic accounting of water relates to blue water in isolation, but the technique nevertheless provides useful complementary information to that obtained through considerations of the rest of the water footprint and the economy behind Virtual Water transfers.
Dr. David Phillips, a freelance consultant–deceased
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Notes
- 1.
Blue water is present in surface waters and aquifers, and is the classical focus of studies on the hydrosphere. However, green water (known sometimes as soil moisture) is also of great importance in the agricultural sector in particular, and grey water (volumes required to account for polluting effects) can also be of significance.
- 2.
Data from Eskom were provided by Dr. Dave Lucas, and those from SAPP were provided by Dr. Lawrence Musaba.
- 3.
FAOSTAT database available at http://www.fao.org/statistics/en/.
- 4.
The Harmonised System—also known as the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System—was introduced in 1988 and is used by most countries in the world to characterise trade. It is run and maintained by the World Customs Organisation based in Brussels, which has over 170 members.
- 5.
It is notable in passing here that the data platform created concentrates on internationally traded items, as possible changes to the Virtual Water transfers internationally are the primary issue of interest. However, countries can also free up blue water resources by altering their patterns of crop and livestock production to feed their own national population, and this represents an area which could well be of major interest to the Virtual Water studies in southern Africa in the future.
- 6.
For generic data, see for example Energy Demands on Water Resources. Report to Congress on the Interdependency of Energy and Water. US Department of Energy, December 2006.
- 7.
It is notable that some of the water sources used to support thermoelectric power generation also involve impoundments, in some instances to increase assurance of supply. However, these are generally much smaller than those employed to generate hydropower, with minor evaporative losses—and they are also usually multi-use facilities, being employed in support of agricultural irrigation in particular. It is also arguable that the evaporation off the large hydropower-related impoundments such as Kariba and Cahora Bassa might not all be allocated to hydropower generation in isolation (where multiple use occurs), but in those cases the hydropower generation was the primary raison d’etre for the construction of the dams. The analysis provided here is thus considered to be generically robust, and in any event the very large distinction between consumptive water use in the two forms of electricity generation would persist, even where additional (minor) factors are taken into account.
- 8.
It could be argued that the construction of major dams for generating hydropower has effects not only on evaporation rates upstream, but also those downstream, due to the resulting changes in river flow dynamics/cross-section, etc. Such effects are certainly relevant in terms of basin-level water management, but they have not been taken into account here (and are believed in most cases to be minor, compared to evaporative losses at the reservoir sites).
- 9.
It is notable that when these new facilities come online, some will affect the data for consumptive water use as shown here. This will occur as new plants are constructed downstream of existing facilities which already enjoy regulated flows from upstream reservoirs, and also when some of the existing facilities are expanded in relation to their electrical output.
- 10.
The second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project was officially commenced in late March 2014. This is reported to involve a total cost of R15.5 billion, and will involve the construction of the Polihali Dam and the Kopong pumped storage supplying a further 1200Â MW of hydroelectric power to Lesotho.
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Phillips, D., Boyall, S. (2016). Quantifying Virtual Water Flows in the 12 Continental Countries of SADC. In: Entholzner, A., Reeve, C. (eds) Building Climate Resilience through Virtual Water and Nexus Thinking in the Southern African Development Community. Springer Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28464-4_2
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