The Water Footprint, as an indicator of water consumption has become increasingly popular for analyzing environmental issues associated with the use of water resources in the global supply chain of consumer goods. This is particularly relevant for countries like the UK, which increasingly rely on products produced elsewhere in the world and thus impose pressures on foreign water resources. Existing studies calculating water footprints are mostly based on process analysis, and results are mainly available at the national level. The current paper assesses the domestic and foreign water requirements for UK final consumption by applying an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model in combination with geo-demographic consumer segmentation data. This approach allows us to calculate water footprints (both direct and indirect) for different products as well as different geographies within the UK. We distinguished between production and consumption footprints where the former is the total water consumed from the UK domestic water resources by the production activities in the UK and the latter is the total water consumed from both domestic and global water resources to satisfy the UK domestic final consumption. The results show that the production water footprint is 439 m³/cap/year, 85% of which is for the final consumption in the UK itself. The average consumption water footprint of the UK is more than three times bigger than the UK production water footprint in 2006. About half of the UK consumption water footprints were associated with imports from Non-OECD countries (many of which are water-scarce), while around 19% were from EU-OECD countries, and only 3% from Non-EU-OECD countries. We find that the water footprint differs considerably across sub-national geographies in the UK, and the differences are as big as 273 m³/cap/year for the internal water footprint and 802 m³/cap/year for the external water footprint. Our results suggest that this is mainly explained by differences in the average income level across the UK. We argue that the information provided by our model at different spatial scales can be very useful for informing integrated water supply and demand side management.

The Ecological Footprint is a popular indicator for environmental impacts of consumption amongst local authorities and regional governments in the UK. This paper presents the findings of a survey that investigated the use and perception of the Ecological Footprint by some of these decision-making bodies and demonstrates practical applications of the Ecological Footprint in two case studies, Cardiff and York. The general aim of Footprint studies have been more focused towards that of public awareness and education, with its use as a policy tool taking a more secondary role. Increasingly, confidence is growing in the robustness of the Ecological Footprint so that many local authorities now see the Footprint as more of a policy as well as an educational tool. In summary, the Ecological Footprint can be seen as a tool that will help promote ‘integrated thinking’ and a performance culture, contribute to local strategic policy, provide evidence-based policy decisions and help prioritize the importance of sustainability.