Virtual Water Trade between Iran and the European unio‎n (EU28) – A Sectoral-Country Analysis Using the Input-Output Model

The article is grounded on the rapid demand growth and supply constraints, which have imposed unprecedented pressure on water resources in Iran. Virtual water import has been recently discussed as a policy to tackle water scarcity and so the study calculates (with input-output technique) virtual water flows between Iran and European unio‎n (EU 28) in 2011. The results show that Iran has been a net importer of virtual water in trade with the EU28, with net imports of about 667 million m3. The largest Virtual Water Export from Iran to the EU28 are respectively to Germany, Spain and Italy, which accounted for more than 74% of the total virtual water exports. By contrast, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria have been the largest virtual water exporters to Iran, with a total share of over 68.8% of the total. In any case, while Iran's virtual water import from the EU28 is about 2 times as much as virtual water exports, the value of Iran's imports from the EU28 is more than 7.6 times of its exports. An indicator developed shows that Iran's exports to the EU are high water-intensive but Iran's imports from the European unio‎n are low water intensive.