*3.5. Pakistan's Virtual Water Trade in the Future*

By 2030, Pakistan's trade and net imports of blue and green virtual water will increase quite significantly (Table 3). Pakistan's total net import of blue VW will remain negative and increase from <sup>−</sup>9446 Mm<sup>3</sup> in 2016 to <sup>−</sup>29528 Mm<sup>3</sup> in 2030, thus recording a 213% change (the figure in the parenthesis in the second row of Table 3) between 2016 and 2030. The net import of green VW during the same period will increase from 10,543 Mm<sup>3</sup> in 2016 to 29,595 Mm3 in 2030. The ever-increasing quantities of rice exports will be the main factor behind the increase in (negative) net imports of blue VW for Pakistan in 2030. In contrast, cotton imports will contribute significantly to reducing the negative net import of blue VW in 2030. For green VW, on the other hand, the higher net import will be caused not only by the traditional import commodities like palm oil and tea but also by the positive net import of cotton by Pakistan in 2030.


**Table 3.** Pakistan's virtual water trade in 2030 (million m3).

† The figures in the parenthesis are the percentage increase of the respective value in 2030 from the level in 2016. Source: Authors' calculations

In 2030, the net import of VW through agricultural trade will save substantially more green virtual water but at the same time, cause much higher losses of blue VW for Pakistan (Table 3, row 4). The domestic saving of total VW for Pakistan will be 11,472 Mm3, a 185% increase from the 2016 savings of 4023 Mm3. Although the domestic savings of green VW will increase by 206% from 13,230 Mm3 in 2016 to 40,471 Mm3, however, the blue water losses will also increase, recording a 215% increase from <sup>−</sup>9207 Mm<sup>3</sup> to <sup>−</sup>28,999 Mm<sup>3</sup> over the same period. The trends show that the significant losses of blue VW for Pakistan will further expand in the future.

On the global scale, Pakistan's trade in agricultural commodities will have an overall positive impact in terms of total, blue and green virtual water savings in 2030 (Table 3, row 5). Specifically, Pakistan's agricultural trade in 2030 will save 11,406 Mm3 of the total virtual water, as compared to 2926 Mm<sup>3</sup> in 2016 (a 290% increase). The contribution of green VW savings towards global VW savings from Pakistan's trade in agricultural commodities will be more than 20 times higher than the contribution from blue VW savings. Between 2016 and 2030, the global savings of green VW will increase 305% (from 2686 Mm<sup>3</sup> to 10,876 Mm3), while that of blue VW will increase 121% (from 239 Mm3 to 529 Mm3). The detailed commodity-wise analysis (not shown in the table for space consideration) shows that with 12,180 Mm3 savings, palm oil will be the most significant contributor towards global savings of green VW. On the other hand, while the trade in the cotton crop will have a small positive contribution towards global savings of blue VW (398 Mm3), it will contribute negatively towards global savings of green VW (−1476 Mm3).
