The sound of silence: the politics of virtual water policies

• We challenge Allan’s assumption that Virtual Water policy is “politically silent”. • (Implicit or explicit) VW policy recommendations often incorrectly assume unproblematic implementability. • Crises such as the Ukraine war have led states to reassert themselves to strongly reduce their dependence on global grain (VW) trade. • VW is alive and kicking in China, which has discovered VW policy as a water saving strategy, linked to the Belt and Road Initiative. • Rather than assuming silent policy solutions, we should expect for political noise in some cases, and quiet resistance in others. Tony Allan’s claim that virtual water (VW) is an economically invisible and politically silent solution to water scarcity has made the concept attractive to the policy sphere. Allan developed it primarily with reference to the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, where water scarcity is endemic and the availability and prices of staple foods important for political stability. Thus, VW emerged as a promising solution to political tensions in an unstable region. While reactions to such claims have been mixed, VW has become part of the “sanctioned discourse” in the water and development literature. While its proponents have high expectations, part of the scientific world was more critical. More recently the debate seems to have died down, or perhaps changed course. What has become of the concept? In this contribution to the Special Issue in memory of Tony Allan we discuss how VW thinking has developed in the literature and continues influencing the scientific and policy worlds. Particularly interesting are the ways it has been taken up in China as a highly depoliticized basis for technocratic forms of water governance, also as part of the country’s Belt & Road Initiative. Finally, this perspective paper looks into the political dimensions of importing countries’ dependence on VW trade; a debate that has gained new urgency against the background of the Russia-Ukraine war.