The government of Colombia is the first national government to publish a complete multi-sectoral water footprint assessment of all watersheds in its territory. The study was realised by a partnership of the Embassy of Switzerland - Agency of Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), Good Stuff International Latin America and the Caribbean (GSI-LAC) and Centro of Science and Techology of  Antioquia –CTA.

September 2017

The Geographic Agricultural Water Footprint Calculator (GAWFC) is a software tool that calculates green and blue water footprints of crops at geographic locations based on five georeferenced data inputs. It is based in the FAO Report 56 for calculation of crop Evapotranspiration and on the Water Footprint Assessment Manual developed by WFN. The structure of the input files enables the calculation of green and blue water footprints of multiple sites and of multiple crops. The tool can thus not only be used in sites but also for catchment and supply chain agricultural water footprint calculations.

Example of the georeferenced GAWFC output of blue and green water footprints (m³/t) of banana farms in Dominican Republic

The first version of the code was developed by Dr. Mesfin Mekonnen with the support of the University of Twente in The Netherlands (and currently at University of Nebraska), in 2011. In 2016, after an agreement with Dr. Mekonnen, Derk Kuiper from Good Stuff International further developed the code and created the software tool GAWFC. Also, we at GSI have validated GAWFC against the FAO CROPWAT model.

GAWFC has been used so far in at least 10 different catchments and crops around the globe. With the automatization of the agricultural water footprint calculation, it is now possible to assess crop water use scenarios in an efficient and cost-effective way, which automatically increased the practical applications of the water footprint concept. Results have been used to produce robust farm water balances for the application of the AWS (Alliance for Water Stewardship) standard, to generate crop water use benchmarks for specific localities and crops, to assess scenarios on water productivity, and to assess an entire agricultural sector within a catchment with the aim of setting practical water targets. The field of applications is rapidly growing and the potential is huge.

We at GSI are organising how to make this software tool available to the public. Pls contact Derk Kuiper (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Erika Zarate (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) if you want to know more. You can find GAWFC's brochure here. 

Example project using GAWFC: Water Footprint Assessment for the entire banana sector in Dominican Republic

The Geographic Agricultural Water Footprint Calculator (GAWFC) is a software tool that calculates green and blue water footprints of crops at geographic locations based on five georeferenced data inputs. It is based in the FAO Report 56 for calculation of crop Evapotranspiration and on the Water Footprint Assessment Manual developed by WFN. The structure of the input files enables the calculation of green and blue water footprints of multiple sites and of multiple crops. The tool can thus not only be used in sites but also for catchment and supply chain agricultural water footprint calculations.

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).

El pasado martes 13 de junio tuvieron lugar en Madrid las jornadas IAHR – Spain Water sobre Huella Hídrica como indicador de sostenibilidad, bajo la coordinación de EsAgua, la plataforma española promotora de la Huella Hídrica a nivel nacional.  En GSI tuvimos la oportunidad de exponer nuestra experiencia, manera de trabajar y el reciente desarrollo de la calculadora de Huella Hídrica GAWFC.

From 20-23 May 2015, we organise The Global Water Footprint Standard Training course together with the Centro de Technología de Antiochia CTA) and the Water Footprint Network. The course takes place in Medellin, Colombia and addressses all aspects of the Water Footprint Assessment as defined by the Global Water Footprint Assessment Standard.

La calculadora geográfica de Huella Hídrica agrícola (GAWFC) calcula huellas hídricas verdes y azules de cultivos en localizaciones geográficas basándose en cinco conjuntos de datos de entrada georreferenciados. Está basado en FAO y en el manual de evaluación de huella Hídrica de la Water Footprint Network (WFN). La herramienta puede no sólo ser utilizada a nivel de finca, sino también para cálculos de Huella Hídrica a nivel de cuenca o para cadenas de suministro agrícola.

BLUE-THUMB-UP: Una herramienta onliine libre para ayudar a los agricultores a mejorar su uso del agua, rendimientos y sostenibilidad.

BLUE-THUMB-UP es una herramienta online libre que proporciona fácil acceso a la información para mejorar la productividad y la sostenibilidad en el uso del agua en la agricultura en cualquier parte del mundo. 

La herramienta le proporcionará información sobre las necesidades hídricas de su cultivo en los próximos cuatro días y estima la disponibilidad de agua existente en el suelo. La humedad existente en el suelo es estimada por el usuario y por la cantidad de lluvia prevista. La herramienta evalúa si el agua contenida en el suelo es suficiente para el correcto desarrollo de su cultivo concreto, y si no es así, ofrecerá una estimación del volumen de riego que será necesario aplicar. 

Hemos desarrollado BLUE-THUMB-UP para mostrar que los datos globales, los modelos y la información a nivel de campo pueden ser combinadas en una plataforma OnLine para poder ayudar y orientar a los agricultores sobre las necesidades hídricas de sus cultivos y cuando y cuánto será necesario regar. 

La herramienta es libre para que todo el mundo pueda acceder a ella y utilizarla para sus propios beneficios. Siéntase libre de usarla, compartir sus experiencias con nosotros y aportarnos sus comentarios y sugerencias para mejorarla y añadirle características adicionales. 

BLUE-THUMB-UP is an Online free web tool that provides easy access to information to improve productivity and sustainability of water use in farms at any location in the world.

We have developed BLUE-THUMB-UP to show that global data, models and field level information can be combined in a web-platform to provide advice to farmers on the water needs of their crops and if irrigation is required.

For one year now, in GSI we've been working for the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) secretariat, carrying out the practical implementation of the AWS standard in “Iberesparragal”, a citrus farm in the Guadalquivir basin (Spain), in collaboration with the German supermarket chain EDEKA and WWF. The implementation, which has covered 3 of the 6 steps of the AWS standard so far, is providing key learnings and showing the value of the practical use of different tools to help implementers working towards Water Stewardship.

Recently, theUniversity of Twente,UNEP and Good Stuff International collaborated in order to apply theWater Footprint Assessment (WFA) for the first time to the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) subcontinent. A comprehensive accounting on water footprints per sector was produced, as well as a water footprint sustainability analysis.

Diego Arevalo (GSI-LAC) interviews Nelson Omar Vargas, head of the Hydrology section of IDEAM, who explains the benefits of the inclusion of the Water Footprint Assessment in the 2014 Colombian national water study (ENA), as well as its future perspectives.

For VECO East Africa, GSI executed a desktop analysis of the water use and availability data of the Lower Moshi Irrigation scheme in Northern Tanzania. Using publicly available data and open source tools, GSI delineated the watershed of the irrigation scheme, assessed the monthly water requirement and modeled the monthly water availablity scenarios.