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Doubling of the global freshwater footprint of material production over two decades

Nature Sustainability volume 8, pages 1554–1566 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Producing essential, widely used materials such as steel, cement, paper, plastics and rubber requires substantial freshwater resources, which may exacerbate water scarcity. Despite this, comprehensive research on freshwater embodied in material production remains limited. Here we assess the blue water footprint (WFblue) of 16 metallic and non-metallic material categories across 164 regions, using a multiregional input–output model and the hypothetical extraction method. Our findings indicate that the global WFblue of material production doubled from 25.1 billion m3 in 1995 to 50.7 billion m3 in 2021, raising its share in global blue water consumption from 2.8% to 4.7%. The East, South Asia and Oceania regions saw an alarming 267% surge in WFblue for material production, with China—already facing medium-high water stress—experiencing a dramatic ~400% increase. As material production is expected to grow, we underscore the urgency of a water–materials nexus approach, particularly in water-stressed countries.

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Fig. 1: Global WFblue,MP from 1995 to 2021.
Fig. 2: Changes in the WFblue,MP across regions from 1995 to 2021.
Fig. 3: Spatial patterns of WFblue,MP at the national level from 1995 to 2021.
Fig. 4: The balance of virtual water in material production embodied in imports and exports of major trading regions.
Fig. 5: Virtual water flows of material production embodied in inter-regional trade.
Fig. 6: Contributions to the changes in WFblue,MP from 1995 to 2021.

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Data availability

All the raw data have been deposited at https://ielab.info/labs/ielab-gloria. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The environmentally extended MRIO model analysis was conducted using the method and code provided by the Australian IELab (https://ielab.info/) and Northeastern University, China. They are accessible from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 52070034 and 52470207 received by H.W., 52325005 and 72293602 received by S. Liang and 72074193 received by K.F.). H.W. acknowledged financial support from the China Scholarship Council (no. 202306080047). H.W. and F.M. acknowledged support from the European Union under Horizon EU project LearnData (no. 101086712). A.T. acknowledged support from the Yannay Institute for Energy Security. We sincerely thank Mengyu Li from the University of Sydney for her support with the 2019–2021 blue water satellite account data.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yao Wang, Fengmei Ma.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Eco-Industry (Ministry of Ecology and Environment), School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China

    Yao Wang & Heming Wang

  2. Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China

    Fengmei Ma

  3. Center for Collective Learning, CIAS, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

    Fengmei Ma & Heming Wang

  4. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Fengmei Ma, Heming Wang & Heinz Schandl

  5. School of Sustainability, Reichman University (IDC Herzliya), Herzliya, Israel

    Asaf Tzachor

  6. Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Asaf Tzachor

  7. Industrial Ecology Programme, Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Meng Jiang & Edgar G. Hertwich

  8. School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Kai Fang

  9. Zhejiang Ecological Civilization Academy, Anji, China

    Kai Fang

  10. Center of Social Welfare and Governance, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Kai Fang

  11. Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Ecological Security and Green Development, Key Laboratory for City Cluster Environmental Safety and Green Development of the Ministry of Education, School of Ecology, Environment and Resources, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

    Sai Liang

  12. The State Key Lab of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Bing Zhu

  13. Institute for Circular Economy, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Bing Zhu

  14. Energy, Climate, and Environment Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

    Bing Zhu & Edgar G. Hertwich

  15. ISA, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Manfred Lenzen

  16. Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, Delmenhorst, Germany

    Manfred Lenzen

  17. Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    Heinz Schandl

  18. Institute for Ecological Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Vienna, Austria

    Stephan Lutter

Authors
  1. Yao Wang
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  3. Heming Wang
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Contributions

H.W., A.T., Y.W. and F.M. conceived the study. Y.W. and F.M. conducted modelling and analysis, with support from E.G.H., M.L., S. Lutter., S. Liang, K.F. and B.Z. on analytical approaches and from S. Lutter, M.L., M.J. and H.S. on datasets. S. Lutter, E.G.H., M.L. H.S., B.Z., S. Liang and K.F. advised on the policy implications. Y.W., A.T., H.W. and F.M. led the writing with input from all co-authors. All co-authors reviewed and commented on the paper.

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Correspondence to Heming Wang or Asaf Tzachor.

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Wang, Y., Ma, F., Wang, H. et al. Doubling of the global freshwater footprint of material production over two decades. Nat Sustain 8, 1554–1566 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01661-2

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