Water security in Egypt: potential for and constraints on virtual-water decoupling in achieving food-water security

Water security has generated much research and policy-making concern over recent decades. Food production has always been the major water user, but food-water security has rarely been foregrounded in public policy or as a research priority. This research addresses food-water security policy insofar it can be a means of achieving national water security. The research examines the policy instruments deployed to achieve food-water security. More specifically, it analyses the potential for, and the constraints on, virtual-water decoupling in achieving food-water security. Virtual-water decoupling is the policy instrument that reduces the pressure on domestic water consumption for food production by importing water embedded in food imports. This study has developed a novel multi-layered framework based on New Institutional Economics to assess the socio-economic impacts on virtual water decoupling role in achieving food-water security. The framework was then used to provide an in-depth analysis of virtual-water decoupling role in achieving a version of food-water security in Egypt during the period 1962-2013. Egypt was chosen as a case study as it provides a rich example of a country that has maintained a version of water and food-water security, despite being challenged by a limited freshwater supply and a rapidly growing population. It is shown that Egypt has experienced episodes of growth and retreat of virtual-water decoupling until it adopted a stable virtual-water decoupling policy. This stable policy has provided it with more than one-third of its annual food-water consumption, namely water embedded in the food consumed, since 2004. It is also revealed that the Egyptian socio-economic context has been a major determinant of the virtual-water decoupling - sometimes constraining and reinforcing it on others. It is concluded that the potential for virtual-water decoupling depends not only on the effectiveness of its implementation but also on adaptation to socio-economic constraints.Open Acces