
Last June 13th, GSI was present at the event "Water Footprint as an indicator of efficiency and sustainability for a better water management", organized by IAHR-Spain Water and the Spanish Water Footprint platform ESAgua. The event, held in the Spanish ministry of Agriculture and Environment, served to show our framework WaterData4Action and the recently developed Geographic Agricultural Water Footprint Calculator (GAWFC).
Last June 13th, GSI was present at the event "Water Footprint as an indicator of efficiency and sustainability for a better water management", organized by IAHR-Spain Water and the Spanish Water Footprint platform ESAgua. The event, held in the Spanish ministry of Agriculture and Environment, served to show our experiences on using the Water Footprint in a practical way, our framework WaterData4Action and the recently developed Geographic Agricultural Water Footprint Calculator (GAWFC).
The event started with the new executive director of the Water Footprint Network, Dr. Christpher Briggs, who introduced the main concepts of the Water Footprint and some of the most relevant case studies in which the methodology has been implemented, some of them also in collaboration with GSI, like the Water Footprint Assessment of 316 watersheds in Colombia for the National Water Study (ENA). After him, Javier López Pereira from the hydrological confederation of Douro river showed how the Water Footprint was tested in one of the sub-basins of the Douro river, with interesting results showing the value of the Water Footprint as a tool for hydrological planning.
GSI was represented by Alex F. Poulussen from GSI Spain, who explained the experiences in which GSI implemented the methodology and the framework WaterData4Action developed after learning from the different contexts the need to use data, organize it and prepare it to trigger action, engaging the basin stakeholders throughout the process. The presentation contents were prepared by the entire GSI Europe team: Derk Kuiper, Erika Zárate and Alex F. Poulussen.
In line with that, the new Geographic Agricultural Water Footprint Calculator (GAWFC) developed by GSI last year in collaboration with Mesfin Mekonnen from the University of Nebraska, was also presented as a disruptive tool that can facilitate multiple Water Footprint calculations at the farm level, with several potential uses at different scales. The Water Footprint Assessment for the entire banana sector in Dominican Republic was shown as an example of the use of GAWFC.
Read more about this event (In Spanish) here
Water Footprint Assessment for the entire banana sector in Dominican Republic