Quantification of Water Footprint on China's Textiles and Clothing Exports

China is the world's largest producer and exporter of textiles and clothing. Water resources are 'virtually' transferred from China to trade partners through the international trade network of textiles and clothing. This paper provides a systematic analysis of virtual water trade flows related to China's textiles and clothing exports in the period 2001-2014 with the water footprint (WF) methodology. The results indicate that both WF of textiles exports (WFexports(T)) and WF of clothing exports (WFexports(C)) showed continuous increase from 2001 to 2007, and fluctuation changes from 2008 to 2014. The total WFexports(C) was 40.71 Gm(3), a little larger than the total WFexports(T) with a volume of 39.96 Gm(3). Water pollution caused more severe impacts on the environment as grey WF(expon)s was larger than blue WFexports. Policies that encouraged the development and popularization of freshwater saving and wastewater pollutants reduction technologies in China's textiles industry promoted the reduction of water footprint intensity of textiles and clothing industrial production. This effectively inhibited the increase of WFexports, especially after 2008.