摘要
During the last decade, there has been an intensive research activity concerning the concept of the Water Footprint （WF） approach, which was firstly introduced by Arjen Hoekstra in 2002. WF is an indicator of direct and indirect freshwater use of a consumer or producer that takes into account water consumption in every step （intermediate and final） along the production chain and services. The concept can be implemented in various levels such as products, consumers, producers, nations and river basins etc.. The water footprint within a geographically delineated area equals the sum of the process water footprints of all processes taking place in the area. The aim of current research is a review of the most important WF studies, with a special focus on applications within regional, basin and administrative unit level. National and global scales are not included in the current paper. The article presents the most widespread methodologies and approaches that attempt to evaluate water footprints of specific defined areas and highlights their recent advances as well as shortcomings in the constantly evolving research efforts.
