Water footprint of agricultural products produced in the central highlands and traded in Lima

Abstract

The objective was to determine a model to obtain the water footprint of main agricultural products from the Peru’s central highlands which are sold in the Lima markets, so a conceptual model that determines the crops water requirement was developed also with the respective yields both have established the virtual water content of each agricultural product expressed in l/kg; with this result and the sold product amount, the virtual water (AV) was determined transferred to the Lima market, corresponding to fourteen agricultural products. Values which indicate that virtual water volumes between the products vary by the commercialized amounts according to the production which depends on factors such as weather, consumer demand and the technology used in production were obtained. Thus, consumption of a potato kg in Lima involves the transfer of 300,71 liters of “virtual water” from the Junin region where the product is produced. The product which transfer as much virtual water is the potato with 78 069 926,37 m3, followed by green peas with 16 889 273,96 m3, and the product which transfer as little virtual water is the onion with 10 336,59 m3, whereas the total volume of transferred virtual water is 165 595 592,28 m3.