Water footprint and economic water productivity of Italian wines with appellation of origin: Managing sustainability through an integrated approach

Highlights: • Water efficiency is a management tool to improve performances from an integrated view. • The minimum value of crop water use is associated with Etna wine, followed by Dolcetto d'Alba and Nebbiolo d'Alba. • Differences in economic water productivity provide information for the choice of performing vineyards. • Barolo and Brunello di Montalcino have the highest value of economic water productivity among AO wines. • Policy planning represents a key factor for AO Italian wine industry sustainability. In the agribusiness wine is certainly a very interesting sector to analyze. The specific aim of this work is to assess water efficiency and economic water productivity for the Italian wines with Appellation of Origin (AO). This assessment could represent a potential management instrument to improve production performances from a more integrated perspective, pursuing new market trends. The study is related to Italy, the first worldwide producer, and analyzes the available data of AO wines, which globally have specific features, being strictly connected with the territory and its background. The results show the top and bottom five AO wines in terms of crop water use and economic water productivity and their trends during the period 2011–2015, based on average annual change rates. Results of this study are relevant for the wine sector since they can guide decision makers on vine variety selection in the context of micro- and macro-level sustainability of water resource use.