The impact of cotton on fresh water resources and ecosystems
11 junio 2007 Jens Soth, Environmental Protection
Encouragement Agency. Hamburg, Germany
Christian Grasser and Romina Salerno,
Kiefer & Partners AG, Management Consultants for Energy and Environment. Zurich, Switzerland.
WWF May 1999
Only a tiny fraction of the total amount of global freshwater is available as a yearly renewable resource. Moreover this resource is very unequally distributed between different countries and different continents.
Regarding national water data it can be concluded that some cotton producing countries can provide their total freshwater withdrawal with internal, i.e. national, renewable freshwater but others, for example Egypt or Uzbekistan, depend highly on renewable freshwater from other countries. Considering that the renewable water resources differ regionally and that irrigated cotton is grown mainly in dry climates than the sufficient availability of renewable freshwater on a local or regional level must be questioned.
With 69%, the agricultural sector has by far the largest share of global freshwater withdrawal compared with industrial and municipal use. Depending on the climatic situation, this share can increase in some countries to up to 98%.
Among the major cotton producing countries1, in Pakistan or Uzbekistan the freshwater withdrawal figures for agriculture are well above the world average and account for 84% and 98% respectively, whereas those for Turkey and the USA for example, are below. In dry climates, freshwater withdrawal can challenge annual renewable freshwater resources, which in turn can lead to a long-term depletion of freshwater resources.
Sitio Web (URL): http://assets.panda.org/downloads/impact_long.pdf
