ArticleResources, conservation, and recycling2021
Which diet has the lower water footprint in Mediterranean countries?
Article in Resources, conservation, and recycling, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Health and Environmental Impacts, Safety, and Affordability of the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet: A Multidisciplinary Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Pooled it
- Sustainability Dimensions of the Mediterranean Diet: A Systematic Review of the Indicators Used and Its Results.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Pooled it
- Environmental footprint implications of guideline-based dietary transition in China: carbon, water, and interprovincial transfer effects.NPJ science of food · 2026Article
- A Novel Chronotype-Based Mediterranean Diet Pyramid: An Updated Representation by the Italian Society of Endocrinology (SIE) and the Italian Society of Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition (ADI).Current nutrition reports · 2026Review
- Planetary health diet adherence, nutritional adequacy, and environmental footprints: a cross-sectional study in Turkish adults.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- The Mediterranean Diet as a Model of Sustainability: Evidence-Based Insights into Health, Environment, and Culture.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Review
- Transitioning to healthy and sustainable diets has higher environmental and affordability trade-offs for emerging and developing economies.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Evaluation of the Turkey Nutrition and Health Surveys according to the mediterranean adequacy index and sustainability through water footprints.Public health nutrition · 2023Article
- EU-27 ecological footprint was primarily driven by food consumption and exceeded regional biocapacity from 2004 to 2014.Nature food · 2023Article
- Insight into the Sustainability of the Mediterranean Diet: The Water Footprint of the Recommended Italian Diet.Nutrients · 2023Article
- Compliance with the EAT-Lancet diet and risk of colorectal cancer: a prospective cohort study in 98,415 American adults.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- Dietary Environmental Footprints and Their Association with Socioeconomic Factors and Food Purchase Practices: BRAZUCA Natal Study.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- National water shortage for low to high environmental flow protection.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Environmental footprints of food consumption: Protocol for a systematic literature review.PloS one · 2022Article
- Assessment of the Methodology That Is Used to Determine the Nutritional Sustainability of the Mediterranean Diet-A Scoping Review.Frontiers in nutrition · 2021Article
- Eat Well to Fight Obesity… and Save Water: The Water Footprint of Different Diets and Caloric Intake and Its Relationship With Adiposity.Frontiers in nutrition · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The Mediterranean region is increasingly water scarce, with the food system being the largest driver of water use. We calculate the water resources related to food consumption in nine major Mediterranean countries, by means of the water footprint (WF), for the existing situation (period 2011-2013) as well as the Mediterranean and EAT-Lancet diets. We account for different food intake requirements according to gender and six age groups. These nine countries - Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco - represent 88% of the population of all countries bordering the Mediterranean. As first major observation, we find that the EAT-Lancet diet, a scientifically optimised diet for both nutrition and certain environmental indicators, requires less water resources than the Mediterranean diet, a culturally accepted diet within the region. In terms of water resources use, adherence to the former is thus more beneficial than adherence to the latter. As second major observation, we find that the EAT-Lancet diet reduces the current WF for all nations consistently, within the range -17% to -48%, whereas the Mediterranean diet reduces the WF of the European countries, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco within the range of -4% to -35%. For the Maghreb countries Tunisia and Algeria, the Mediterranean diet WF is slightly higher compared to the current WF and the proportions of food product groups differ. Such dietary shifts would be important parts of the solution to obtain the sustainable use of water resources in Mediterranean countries.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.