This paper reviews current knowledge about water footprints (WFs) and the role of input–output techniques. We first provide an overview of the prevailing ‘bottom-up’, process-based methods and their strengths and limitations. This overview leads to discussion of the benefits of combining process-based water footprints with information from input–output techniques. The central theme and proposition is that environmental multi-region input–output analysis (E-MRIO) has a powerful capacity to establish the geography of embodied water, and to complement process-based approaches to WF by expanding their supply-chain coverage. Combining process and input–output information provides valuable information for a diverse set of water planning and water policy objectives. A comprehensive and systematic outline of potential policy applications of E-MRIO (and process analysis methods) is presented.

A major premise of this paper is that Buddhism provides a logic and means to help resolve this tension between in-grained economic system imperatives and the changes actually required for achieving environmental sustainability. In this simple depiction, we examine the logic inherent within Buddhism's Four Noble Truths, and the means proffered in the Eightfold Path, and extend upon these basic ideas with knowledge and experience available from 21st Century environmental science, economics and technology fields. The ultimate goal is to illustrate how this ancient wisdom can help inform and facilitate the successful transformation to sustainable human economies.Griffith Sciences, Griffith School of EnvironmentNo Full Tex