Water footprint to support environmental management: An overview

Abstract

The issue of water and its management is central to international debate: water is a scarce resource, although renewable; climate changes, agricultural, industrial and civilians use have limited the availability of this resource for future generations. In recent years, companies have shown a growing interest in consequences of water use and consumption, especially the agri-food sector companies. In this chapter, through an overview of methodological and operational approaches used in scientific literature to assess water use and consumption, we summarize their main applications in agri-food sector and we indicate future developments in the field.