INPUT–OUTPUT AND WATER: INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE

Abstract

This editorial constitutes the introduction to the special issue of Economic Systems Research on Input–Output and Water. We provide a general overview of current water problems and the role that input–output analysis can play in the research of different water issues and their relationship with the economic activity. We also introduce the five papers in this special issue.

Keywords:

• Input–Output
• Water

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editors of Economic Systems Research, Manfred Lenzen and Bart Los for their kind invitation to edit this special issue. We also thank the contributors and the referees for their collaboration in this project.

Notes

¹ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Arnell and Liu, 2001) included changes in the rates of sedimentation in rivers and changes in volume and seasonal availability of water supply among the consequences of climate change on water resources.

² More information on these projects can be find in the following web pages http://www.feem-project.net/exiopol/, http://www.oneplaneteconomynetwork.org/ and http://www.wiod.org/.

³ We have implemented the following search criteria: (1) journal articles; (2) written in English; (3) contained in the following subject areas: Environmental Sciences, Engineering, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Energy, Social Sciences, Economics, Econometrics and Finance, Material Sciences, Mathematics, Business, Management and Accounting, Decision Sciences and Multidisciplinary; (4) the abstract, keywords and/or title include the word ‘water’ and, at least, one of the following words: ‘input-output’, ‘social accounting matrix’ or ‘computable general equilibrium’; (5) the keywords should contain the terms ‘input-output’, ‘input-output analysis’, ‘input-output model’, ‘input output’, ‘input output analysis’, ‘input output model’; (6) a final manual checking of the abstracts has been done to ensure that the term input-output referrers to our methodology, given the different acceptations that these words have in the chemical, agricultural and other sciences world.

⁴ Note that when this article was being written, 2011 is an incomplete year, so 13 articles is a promising number to confirm the observed tendency.