Water footprint of food quality schemes

Water Footprint (WF, henceforth) is an indicator of water consumption and has taken ground to assess the impact of agricultural production processes over freshwater. The focus of this study was contrasting non-conventional, certified products with identical products obtained through conventional pro...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Donati, Michele, Torok, A, Gauvrit, Lisa, Arfini, Filippo, Gil Roig, José María|||0000-0003-3313-9052
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/358197
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/358197
https://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jafio-2019-0045
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Food--Quality--Research
Agricultural production
Crop water requirement
Evapotranspiration
Irrigation
Agrotech
Water footprint
Aliments--Qualitat
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria agroalimentària::Indústries agroalimentàries::Alimentació i nutrició humana
Descripción
Sumario:Water Footprint (WF, henceforth) is an indicator of water consumption and has taken ground to assess the impact of agricultural production processes over freshwater. The focus of this study was contrasting non-conventional, certified products with identical products obtained through conventional production schemes (REF, henceforth) using WF as a measure of their pressure on water resources. The aim was to the show whether products that are certified as Food Quality Schemes (FQS, henceforth) could also incorporate the lower impact on water among their quality features. To perform this comparison, we analysed 23 products selected among Organic, PDO and PGI as FQS, and their conventional counterparts. By restricting the domain of analysis to the on-farm phase of the production chain, we obtained that that no significant differences emerged between the FQS and REF products. However, if the impact is measured per unit area rather than per unit product, FQS showed a significant reduction in water demand.