Int’l Virtual Water Confab in Tehran

The First International Conference on Virtual Water was held in Tehran on Monday at the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture to address the water shortage looming over a number of countries, especially Iran. The conference was attended by Minister of Agricultural Jihad Mahmoud Hojjati, a deputy foreign minister, the head of ICCIMA and a representative with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization among others, the website of ICCIMA reported.It was announced in the conference that a virtual water databank will be established in collaboration with FAO. ICCIMA chief, Gholamhossein Shafei, said that in response to a proposal that the conference be held annually, the Netherlands announced its interest in hosting the next one. Virtual water is the water used to create the goods and services that we consume and use. The embodied water concept is illustrated in a diagram with a bowl of pasta, which may hypothetically contain 200 liters of virtual water, although only two liters of boiling water is used to produce it at home.