Does international trade help us deal with water scarcity problems?

Countries with limited water resources are believed to be able to deal with water scarcity problems with the help of international trade. Instead of producing water-intensive products by themselves, importing water-intensive products can increase their access to global water resources and their water footprint per capita. Water embodied in international trade is called virtual water flows. However, recent studies show that international virtual water flows are composed of a significant amount of scarce water as well. Countries may face additional water scarcity problems because of this. It remains unclear whether or not the countries actually have more or less water scarcity problems due to international trade. We conducted a time series analysis for each country considering the scarce water in their water footprint from 1990 to 2019. The scarce water includes not only the scarce water consumed within the country but also the scarce water imported via international trade. We used a crop model, hydrological model, and input-output analysis to estimate water consumption, water scarcity, and virtual water flows. Our results advance our understanding of the dynamic relationship between international trade and water scarcity.