ABSTRACT
About 22% of water use in the world is for producing export products. The overdraft of many aquifers is partially related to incentives to produce for the world market and the fact that water scarcity is not properly priced and therefore not reflected in the price of traded commodities. This chapter aims to discuss the relation between the global economy and unsustainable water use, with a focus on groundwater and global food demand. Unsustainable groundwater use isn’t a local problem only, because increasingly global markets and companies and consumers worldwide depend on the products derived from unsustainable water supplies. There is a need to collaborate internationally in introducing forces or incentives to drive towards more sustainable groundwater use. Possible arrangements discussed are an international water pricing protocol, but also the institutionalization of groundwater footprint caps that reflect maximum sustainable abstraction levels and an international product label reflecting sustainability of water use.
