A New Way of Alleviating Water Shortage by Virtual Water

Virtual water is a new concept in water resources management,while water footprint is another new method of calculating resources after the ecological footprint.They profoundly post the amount of virtual water in products and the consumptions of residents.In this paper,according to virtual water and water footprint calculation methods,virtual water contents in the primary farm products and virtual water consumption of residents in Jiangxi Province in 2000 are calculated.Then the difference in virtual water consumption between residents in Jiangxi Province,Shaanxi Province and Gansu Province is analyzed.The result shows that we can adjust the pattern of regional production and consumption and improve virtual water trade in order to alleviate the contradiction between socioeconomic development and the shortage of water resources.