Virtual Water Trade as a Strategy to Water Resource Management in Iran

Abstract

Agriculture has historically played a central role in the economy, life and culture of the Iranian population. No-wadays, this sector is facing the reality that its natural fresh water resources become fully utilized. Considering the climate conditions and limitation of using new water resources and the necessity of increasing agricultural product as a result of population growth, there is a general doubt about Iran's ability to maintain this level of production amid the mounting water challenges, among other obstacles. Therefore, the evaluation of virtual wa-ter and water footprint can provide new indicators for informing water policy decisions. So, in order to study the situation at the national level, we estimated virtual water consumption in term of virtual water theory as well water footprint in agriculture sector of Iran. Data from 2001-2008 were used to account for yearly. The results of this study show that Iran has water import dependency and also net water import is 12.7 billion m 3 averages. So Iran country saved 12.7 billion m 3 from their domestic water resource for utilization in other sectors. Finally, it should be concluded that virtual water trade as a policy measure to water resources management will be pro-vided to a great extent in order to reach both significant water saving and environmental sustainability.