The water footprint of food waste: case study of fresh mango in Australia |
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| Authors: | BG Ridoutt P Juliano P Sanguansri J Sellahewa |
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| Institution: | 1. CSIRO Sustainable Agriculture National Research Flagship, Private Bag 10, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia;2. CSIRO Food and Nutritional Sciences, Private Bag 16, Werribee, Victoria 3030, Australia;3. CSIRO Food and Nutritional Sciences, P.O. Box 52, North Ryde, New South Wales 2113, Australia;1. The College of Environment and Planning, Henan University, 475004, China;2. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China;1. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3000, Australia;2. Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn 3121, Australia;3. Manufacturing Flagship, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Clayton 3168, Australia;1. School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University Australia, 160 Ann St., Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia;2. Research Division, Central Queensland University Australia, Rockhampton, Queensland, 4702, Australia;1. Twente Water Centre, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500AE Enschede, the Netherlands;2. Water Engineering Department, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran;3. Institute of Water Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore 259770, Singapore;4. Water Footprint Network, P.O. Box 217, 7500AE Enschede, the Netherlands |
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| Abstract: | In many parts of the world, freshwater is already a scarce and overexploited natural resource, raising concerns about global food security and damage to freshwater ecosystems. This situation is expected to intensify with the FAO estimating that world food production must double by 2050. Food chains must therefore become much more efficient in terms of consumptive water use. For the small and geographically well-defined Australian mango industry, having an average annual production of 44,692 t of marketable fresh fruit, the average virtual water content (sum of green, blue and gray water) at orchard gate was 2298 l kg?1. However, due to wastage in the distribution and consumption stages of the product life cycle, the average virtual water content of 1 kg of Australian-grown fresh mango consumed by an Australian household was 5218 l. This latter figure compares to an Australian-equivalent water footprint of 217 l kg?1, which is the volume of direct water use in Australia having an equivalent potential to contribute to water scarcity. Nationally, distribution and consumption waste in the food chain of Australian-grown fresh mango to Australian households represented an annual waste of 26.7 Gl of green water and 16.6 Gl of blue water. These findings suggest that interventions to reduce food chain waste will likely have as great or even greater impact on freshwater resource availability as other water use efficiency measures in agriculture and food production. |
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