 Then you definitely don't get your cotton here from Ireland, it's impossible to make it here. So it is being grown in other places like Turkey, Pakistan, India, Central Asia and there are all sorts of problems behind it. I will show you that in a minute. If you think about meat, of course even the meat that you eat here not all comes from here. I mean the sheep, you can easily see and they are kind of eating here and they use water but it's own local water. But there's a lot of import of meat as well and this imported meat often depends on imported soybean from countries like Argentina and Brazil. So that's the soybean over. If you look at what are the most important countries where Ireland does have an external water footprint they are listed here and ranked. So the first one is the UK that sounds like obvious but then next one is the USA and why because import of soybean, industrial products, animal products etc etc. So you see strange countries like Ghana, why Ghana because you like chocolate, why Brazil, Argentina because of that soybean, why China because of cheap industrial products, a lot of pollution behind it as you know etc. So here is another picture, this is not the Irish water footprint, this is the water footprint of all people together. So the water footprint of humanity nicely put on the map. You see that there are places where there's hardly any water used, there are no farmers, there's no people living there. So the production is of the agriculture production, its production is concentrated in a number of places and of course you need to look at how this water footprint leads to local problems. So you have to put the water footprint in a catchment in the context of the water availability. We have done that here in this research where we compare water footprint and water availability. In fact we divided to water footprint divided by water availability. If that goes beyond 100% obviously it's unsustainable. Now here it shows when it is unsustainable, how many months a year and what we found is that about half of the river basins there is at least one month or more water footprint beyond availability that means beyond the carrying capacity of the basin. So about 2.7 billion people in the world are living in those river basins with water scarcity which goes beyond the carrying capacity of those catchments. If you look more at this, now it's in many places obviously it's not only in developing countries or so, it's also in developed countries like in Australia and in the Midwest of USA but obviously also in countries in northern South Africa and the Middle East. So if you want to kind of visualize those red areas on the map then you see this kind of problems. This is the RLC basin or the former RLC I must say. The RLC in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan is a sea that is very quickly disappearing because the farmers around they use the water from two rivers the Amudaya, the Serdaya to irrigate their cotton fields. So these cotton fields they get the water and the water evaporates the water from the river doesn't flow into the sea anymore and the sea slowly evaporates so it disappears. So you can see how humanity is able to quickly make a lake disappear. You see here it's only 20 years only one third is left and the projections are that it will just continue like that at least if things are business as usual. And the issue is of course not only poor Uzbek people because yes it's not good for Uzbek economy not for the fishermen even not for the cotton farmers because the cotton the cotton fields get get silted so they cannot continue this forever so it may take 10, 20 years more and the economy will be disrupted because of this. But of course it will also mean that the important countries that depend on this cotton will not get the cotton anymore. And cotton is this is just one example you see many other places where cotton comes from having the same same process so it's not sustainable also not for the important countries that depend on it. If we talk about nicer things like flowers we see the same thing the flowers even the Dutch flowers for your information do not come often from the Netherlands they come from other places like Peru like Colombia like Ethiopia Kenya etc this is a lake in Kenya Lake Naivashi it's a famous famous area for flowers a lot of flowers being produced for import for export to to the Netherlands from the Netherlands they are again spread over Europe and it takes a lot of water to grow those flowers the lake slowly goes down so again it's not sustainable the good story by the way is that all those cases where I talk about not sustainability it's kind of a stupidity it's just it happens but it doesn't need to happen so the flowers here we have been there they use too much water so they can do with less so it's not only I'm talking about problems now but there are solutions I will come later to that but let me introduce them already to you now the problem is that we don't value water so and water is for free it's a public resource so there we get into the problem it's free it's public so there is no no incentive for efficient use so it's overexploited for free so that is kind of the underlying mechanism that causes those kind of things and there is technology available to improve however this technology will cost something even though it's not that costly it will cost something so it needs investment so if there is no incentive it will not happen and it doesn't happen if we think about different sorts of food then we see different sorts of water intensities here you nicely see them listed and what you see is that things like pork and and and beef they are relatively water intensive so the animal products are relatively intensive what you see is the the world population is growing but what you also see is that economies are changing and improving and diets are changing particularly in China and India you see people moving towards a more meat and also milk intensive diet so you see that the future water scenario show an increasing demand for water and increasing water footprint not only because of the growing populations but also because of the growing economies and changing diets so your favorite hamburger will cost about 2400 liters just think about it if you if you if you eat it again again here it's not because I want to convey now a message anti hamburger or so it's awareness and at the same time it's also that not the one hamburger is equal to the other one so it would be useful if people know the differences between the different pieces of of beef and and we don't know because there is no information no knowledge no tracing of information no mechanisms in the European Union or whatsoever to to to kind of account for the fact that there are differences in water demands between one piece of beef and another piece of beef or one shirt of cotton and another cotton shirt and that would be useful of course that you know okay this cotton shirt uses half the amount of the global average well another one may use two or three times more so let me show what it means if you compare different diets you see here the the kind of average diet in a western country you see here check it here about 950 kilocalorie per day come from animal origin much more 2450 come from vegetable origin so in average we have an intake of 3400 kilocalorie per day not not intake that I say it wrongly because you would get too fat it's it's what we consume that means we buy it so a lot we throw away but anyway this is what we what we buy and the water footprint that liter per kilocalorie is five times higher for those commodities from animal origin so that means that if you look at the water footprint 3600 litre per day related to our food most of it is related to the food from animal origin if you then take a vegetarian diet it's still the same consumption so we still waste however now we we take we waste more vegetable origin food you will see that our water footprint gets reduced from 3600 to 2300 so it's a reduction about one one-third by just changing your your your consumption pattern you also immediately will understand that these things are very sensitive to talk about however what I often say is why why not simply fire all the water ministers of the world why why because what does the water minister do try to kind of solve end of pipe some water problems well in fact what really matters for the water discussion in the world is what what people do in terms of what they consume so if you can influence that you are much more effective than have a water policy if if you can influence the somehow to do the the minister of economics or the minister of trade in a way that contributes to wise water governance so that you have economic patterns that account for water scarcity patterns then you would do very good so in fact the story is about integrating water wisdom into decisions in other sectors not so much better water policy of course water policy we need water policy we need water standards but what you need what we really need is to have an understanding in other waters in other sectors economics trade foreign aid agriculture energy on what means the policies in the other sectors for water because if in the other sectors you make decisions that integrate water wisdom you will have a much better governance of water I come back to to governance from governmental point of view in the minute what we see is that companies they understand water and water scarcity more and more because water because companies they often don't use water so much water themselves but they depend on ingredients that use so much water so the coca-cola for instance is the larger sugar buyer in the world and sugar is a big water user one of the biggest water use so and there's a big difference between sugar cane and sugar beads and you can also make sugar from from maize so it's good to know what is the water intensity of sugar if you get from maize versus sugar and beach versus sugar cane what is the impact if you get it from here or from there so a company like coca-cola is now looking at their water footprint of their kind of different products to see to which extent their products are sustainable of course they have now discovered they are not sustainable because they get the sugar cane often and the sugar cane is very water intensive if compared to the sugar bead or the maize and they get it from areas that are highly water scarce and where the sugar contributes to water over exploitation of water resources with this knowledge of course they can improve they can set strategies for water footprint reduction I was also mentioning energy what has energy to do with water what you see in european policy but you see it also in the u.s in brazil and china and india and all over the world is a movement away from fossil fuels toward biofuels it makes sense because biofuels are less carbon intensive however it doesn't make sense at all if you look at the water implications of that if you really look at how much water it will cost if you implement those policies worldwide just 10 percent you get an incredible increase of water demand and water footprint so you only enlarge the problems you already have in the water sector so the energy sector solves its energy problem by creating a water problem that's not what we need what we need is solving our energy problems and our water problems at the same time the water problem water sector does do the same thing they solve their water problem by for instance desalination now what is desalination it makes fresh water from salt water so what is more wise than that because the issue is fresh water scarcity so now you create new fresh water from salt salt water so that seems like wise however it's very energy intensive so what you see in the water sector they solve the water problems by making the water sector more energy intensive more joules per cubic meter while the energy sector is solving its problems by becoming more water intensive of course again here we need to integrate water policies energy policies in a way that solves all the problems at the same time and here it shows the kind of the numbers behind it also shows that if you choose for for biofuels it makes sense that you look at different sorts of crops like in in euro we see a lot of focus on rapeseed let me it does work rapeseed is there on the right side rapeseed can be used for making biodiesel it's a very unwise choice to produce to produce biodiesel biofuels from rapeseed simply because the water implications and the lentic implications are much bigger than if you would choose for sugar beet which is just a proper alternative choice but if you never look at these implications the choice is made on other crops i've never discovered why why there is not a discussion about if we make first of all whether we should make that many biofuels and whether it's really wise but second if you do it then what sorts of crops you use for it what are the implications for other sectors again of course water is for free etc there are a lot subsidies in this in this sector so then then it is possible but not sustainable this is a bit complex but it shows a lot in in one in one graph it shows the water footprint per capita for different countries so you see on the left country there are low water footprint per capita and on the right countries with large water footprint per capita on the right you see countries like the us and southern european countries and at the left you see china and india and in the middle somewhere in the middle you see uk and also ireland is in that region so what you see is that the the water footprint is very different per country The global average is about 1,400 cubic meters per capita per year. And you cannot really imagine easily that the global average water footprint should go up. I mean, if it goes up, then only you will see an enlargement of the water problems in the place where already the water is used unsustainably. So the water footprint as a global total should go down, in fact. But let's assume that we are sustainable, if we just keep it at the same level as it is, then you immediately see that if China and India grow, other countries need to go down. So countries like the US, we have a water footprint twice the global average. It's not sustainable. What you see here is that it's not sustainable, it's not equitable. And what you also see is that it's our particular commodities that contribute to the water footprint, and I already mentioned the animal products in the cotton. So we may need to think about global water footprint targets in the same way as we are now used to think in terms of carbon footprint reduction targets. Then we get this problem, and we have seen it for carbon as well. That countries with a big carbon footprint like the US, they will not like the idea because water is the same thing for them. They need to reduce most because they have the biggest. However, they will probably find arguments that it's somehow not right, that they should reduce, but they will probably argue that others should not increase. So you will have a political debate here, which may be as fierce as you have in the case of carbon. Nevertheless, in my new book I introduced the idea of maybe a need for a Kyoto Protocol on water. Of course, we should not copy the mistakes as we have made then to water. So there's a lot more to say about that. Looking at Europe, I think it's interesting to know that we have a very specific position in all this. Europe is the largest, what I call, virtual water importer. So you see different colors here. The green countries are the countries that use a lot of water for export. So they have a net virtual water export as I call it. The red countries have a big virtual water import. So they rely particularly on the import of water-intensive commodities. Now Europe is dark red, so Europe is the largest virtual water importer in the world. And that's a bit strange because Europe is not the most scarce area in the world. So why Europe, being not the most scarce area in the world, imports most of the water in virtual form? You can expect that for North Africa, Middle East, because they will have to. For Europe, it's not so natural. The reason, of course, is that we do import cheap food. So there are other reasons why it happens. But if you look into the future, it will not remain. Australia, US are dark green. It means they use a lot of water for export. And they are overexploiting their water resources. Rivers get empty like the Colorado, ground for the levels go down like in the Midwest of the US. So it's not going to stay like that. So these countries will, in the future, have reduced export flows of water-intensive commodities. But also in China, currently exporting water in virtual form, they will become red countries because they have growing populations, changing diets. So already today, you see them switching towards importers rather than exporters. Forty percent of the water will be in Europe is outside. So if you look in the future, you think about water scarcity, if you think in terms of virtual water import or export, then we should understand that the future will not be like today. What we will see is that countries like Australia, USA, that currently are exporters, and currently have already quite some water scarcity, they will become more water scarcity and they will export less water-intensive goods. So they will move in this graph. China and India experience much higher water scarcity already, but they are still water exporters. They will become water importers. You see that here. The real scarce areas like Mexico, North and South Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe, they are highly scarce, they already depend on imports and they will become more dependent on exports. Like you have areas in this world that depend on oil imports, there are countries that already depend, and even more strongly depend on imports of water in virtual form. And then, what is left, we have North Europe and South America, these are the regions that have water still left. So those are the regions that in the future will have to increasingly supply water-intensive goods to those areas in the world that have lack of water. So for North and Europe, including Ireland, including also my own country, the Netherlands, currently big importers of water, there is an opportunity to reduce that import and even maybe export water-intensive commodities. So what can we do in technical terms? We can talk about zero water footprint in industries. It means, in fact, zero water footprint does not mean zero water use. It just means you take the water and you bring it back to the system. So it means recycling. Or you take it and you also clean it. So zero, what we call gray water footprint means no pollution. Zero blue water footprint means no consumptive use, so you bring it back. If you look at the industry, then we should think about using our rainwater more efficiently. Because normally we think about water problems, we think about water scarce areas with over-exploitation. People are inclined to say then we need to use the water more efficiently. However, there are water-abundant regions where the water is not used very efficiently. So if we make the water more productive in the water-abundant areas, the rainwater more... Then we have the prediction there where it should be in the rainwater areas in rain-fed agriculture. So we need to use our rainwater more productively and at the same time, of course, reduce the efficient use of irrigation water in water-scarred areas. And we should better think about how to use precision farming, organic farming to reduce the pollution also from agriculture. So sometimes I use this slide to speak about what I think are the most important things in terms of water allocation. First, we need to think about sustainability. That means a water footprint cap per reverberation. So this is an instrument that governments can use. There is no government in the world that actually does use it. So it's an advice worldwide to introduce water footprint caps per reverberation. That simply means that if there is no more water than there is, don't use more than that. It's a simple advice, but there is no government in the world that does do that. So that immediately explains over-exploitation if there is not a maximum to use and it is free, then it will automatically happen if the demand increases. It's not completely true that it doesn't exist. The Mura Darling base in Australia is a water footprint cap. However, they only apply it for surface water. So what you see is that people immediately move to groundwater. So they have switched the problem from one field to another field. So they can improve in that respect. So that is the first pillar, water sustainability. The second one is efficient water use. So it's particularly interesting for companies that have products and if they realize how much water it costs per unit of product. And if they also realize what they actually can do to reduce that water footprint per unit, then they have a kind of incentive to work towards that. So that should be another instrument. But also governments can kind of help in this because there needs to be regulation in terms of transparency, for instance. If there is no reason for being transparency, if there is no shared definitions of water footprint, it will be very difficult to communicate about efficiency. And the last one is the most difficult one. It's the social equity issue. Some countries have a much bigger water footprint than others. So we need to talk about sharing water. Not only among communities within countries, but also internationally. So finally, I would like to invite you to go to the website, the Water Footprint Network, www.waterfootprint.org. And you will find there are a lot of interesting materials and publications free for download, but also a place where you can calculate your own water footprint. Thank you.