Summary: The use of water resources has traditionally been studied by accounting for the volume of water removed from sources for specific uses. This approach focuses on surface and groundwater only and it ignores that international trade of products with substantial amounts of embodied water can have an impact on domestic water resources. Using current economic and environmental data, we conduct a consumption‐based assessment of virtual water flows in the European Union (EU27). We find that the total water footprint (WF) of 2,280 cubic meters (m ³ ) per capita for the EU27 mostly consists of green water use (precipitation stored as soil moisture), which is omitted in the conventional water accounting. Blue water (surface and groundwater.) and gray water use (the volume of freshwater needed to dilute pollutants to meet the applicable water quality standards), which are targeted by current EU water policies, only make up 32% of the total WF. We also find that Europeans imported 585 cubic kilometers (km ³ ) (10 ⁹ m ³ ) of virtual water, or around 28% of global virtual water trade flows, in 2009. Within Europe, Germany is a key net importer of water through the trade of products in agriculture, the food industry, the chemical sector, and electricity generation. Countries in Southern and Eastern Europe have specialized in water‐intensive agriculture and are key exporters of virtual water despite experiencing physical scarcity of water. Our results suggest that there is a need to reconsider water policy in the EU to address water transfers occurring through trade and to grasp the interlinkages between green, blue, and gray water—which are likely to become more important in water‐scarce parts of Europe, with a changing climate.

Concerns about the effects and consequences of climate change have notably increased in recent decades. Despite large advances in the understanding of this phenomenon, further research into the determinants of gas emissions is necessary, to shed light on the responsibilities of producers and consumers, and their potential contribution to mitigation strategies. This paper studies the trajectories and determinants of carbon embodied in world trade during a period of 15 years. Our methodology relies on a multiregional input–output model, environmentally extended. Drawing on data from the World Input–Output Database, we estimate embodied emissions in bilateral flows. Then, we assess the determinants of CO₂ emissions embodied in trade, combining input–output modelling with trade gravity panel data analysis. This paper offers a methodological approach that explains and quantifies the underlying factors of carbon trade, integrating the production and consumption perspectives and considering the geographical, structural and institutional context of countries.

International headlines over the last few years have been dominated by extreme weather events, and floods have been amongst the most frequent and devastating. These disasters represent high costs and functional disruptions to societies and economies. The consequent breakdown of the economic equilibrium exacerbates the losses of the initial physical damages and generates indirect costs that largely amplify the burden of the total damage. Neglecting indirect damages results in misleading results regarding the real dimensions of the costs and prevents accurate decision-making in flood risk management. To obtain an accurate assessment of total flooding costs, this paper introduces the flood footprint concept, as a novel accounting framework that measures the total economic impact that is directly and indirectly caused to the productive system, triggered by the flooding damages to the productive factors, infrastructure and residential capital. The assessment framework account for the damages in the flooded region as well as in wider economic systems and social networks. The flood footprint builds on previous research on disaster impact analysis based on Input-Output methodology, which considers inter-industry flows of goods and services for economic output. The framework was applied to the 2007 summer floods in the UK to determine the total economic impact in the region of Yorkshire and The Humber. The results suggest that the total economic burden of the floods was approximately 4% of the region's GVA (£2.7 billion), from which over half comes from knock-on effects during the 14 months that the economy of Yorkshire and The Humber last to recover. This paper is the first to apply the conceptual framework of flood footprint to a real past event, by which it highlights the economic interdependence among industrial sectors. Through such interrelationships, the economic impacts of a flooding event spill over into the entire economic system, and some of the most affected sectors can be those that are not directly damaged. Neglecting the impact of indirect damages would underestimate the total social costs of flooding events, and mislead the correspondent actions for risk management and adaptation