Water footprint (wf) in a basket of exportable agricultural products of the province of San Juan

This paper calculates and compares the Water Footprint (WF) and Virtual Water (VW) for a basket of agricultural products of the province of San Juan with the Water Footprint of a low scale mining project located in the same province. The agricultural products for which the WF was calculated are: onion, melon, white garlic, and grapes for raisins. The mining project for which the Water Footprint was calculated is a gold mine called Casposo, and it is located in the Department of Calingasta in the province of San Juan. Both the mining production and the agricultural production are intended for the foreign market. The agricultural production is destined to the domestic market as well. Virtual water is compared in relation to both activities and consumption is evaluated with respect to the reservoir capacity of the province’s theoreti- cal water volume. The methodology used is based on the Water Footprint Assessment Manual (Hoekstra et al., 2011) and on FAO’s CROPWAT 8.0 model to identify the crops’ water requirements and on the CIMWAT 2.0 climate database.