Sustainability Series 09: The water Footprint of Flowers
Flowers need water. That itself is a no brainer.
They use it to uptake nutrients and minerals from the soil, and move it around their cells, ensuring the strong development of both foliage and flowers. But given the summer we’ve just had here in the UK, with a drought filled season lacking water in multiple areas, it made me question this relationship and what impact farming flowers has on these water shortages.
In creating this Journal entry, I’ve filtered through a plethora of research. This topic is vast, interwoven with many climate change studies, and there’s plenty out there to read & digest. Based on this, I will mainly discuss locally grown flowers (where my first hand experience lies) although do understand that the climate can vary quite drastically across the UK, from the depths of the Scottish Highlands, all the way down to Lands End in Cornwall. I will mention growers overseas, but this is an area of flower farming that I am less familiar with and have limited time to do full justice to.
If you’re interested to learn more about the water footprint of cut flowers, please keep reading.
This Journal entry is here to help with education, and support in choosing what flowers (or none) might be right for you. To others in the industry, this entry is purely to aid conscious consumption, and I do not wish to place disrespect on your choices to either stock, or not stock any mentioned products.
At this critical point, whether a supplier or customer, we need to question the environmental impact we’re making and it's science we need to go to make these choices.
Why is water so important to Flowers?
Flowers need water to grow and it makes up almost 95% of their tissues.
“Water is the most limiting abiotic (non-living) factor to plant growth and productivity, and a principal determinant of vegetation distributions worldwide.” - McElrone, 2013.
It’s necessary for photosynthesis, germination, reducing risks of overheating, providing nutrients and allows the plant to bend & flex (withstanding the strong wind, rain, or moving towards the sun). A shortage can cause smaller plants, limp stems, other abnormalities, decay or death. So as you can imagine, the correct water supply is essential if we want the prettiest and strongest stems possible.
Now we’ve established the importance of water in growing flowers, what does this mean for growers when there’s a lack of rainfall, drought or if they’re growing in an harsh & intensive climate?
Flowers grown in The UK
This summer, 8 out of 12 areas in England were declared to be in drought status (2022). This meant that many places were affected by hosepipe bans, emergency measures & water conservation efforts.
A report from the The UK’s Environment Agency in July 2022 stated that “it has been another very dry week across England. Rainfall totals ranged from 3mm in north-east England to no rainfall in central England and <1mm recorded across the rest of the country. Rainfall totals so far, for July, range from 16% of the long-term average (LTA) in north-west England to 2% of the LTA in east and south-east England.”
For those growing on a commercial scale, many of the enforced water limitations and hosepipe watering bans didn’t affect them directly if their plants were intended for sale. But it’s worth considering how much water they needed to provide for their plants during this period.
Every location across the UK was impacted differently, and each plant growing will have various water requirements, so there’s not a golden rule of thumb for how much would be needed. As a very generalised rule, growing plants require at least 2-4cm of water per week, but even more if it’s hot weather (RHS, 2022). Factors such as drainage, soil quality, type of plant and more can also impact on this measure.
Flowers Grown in Hotter climates
This is an area of growing that I am less familiar with, but wish to raise based on research I’ve conducted. One statistic really stood out from my reading:
“The world’s crops require 2.7 trillion cubic metres of water a year, but countries around the world are struggling to find enough” - BBC
This figure includes all types of crops, not just flowers, but it’s only going to continue increasing with the rising population numbers & climate issues we’re facing globally. Water shortages and droughts are not solely limited within the UK, these are issues affecting growers on a global scale.
This in itself is a huge topic, so narrowing it down to flowers, it’s due to the demands of a year round supply that many of our flowers will be growing outside of the UK (BBC and others reckon this imported figure sits somewhere around 90% of the flowers total sold nationwide - 2019).
Tambuzi flower farm in Kenya recently stated that “climate change is making it increasingly difficult to plan farming activities. Then when there is drought, it’s extreme – it is worsening every year.” - BBC.
And elsewhere, in the 2021 Slow Flowers Member Survey “nearly 60% of respondents cited weather irregularities (too much or too little rain) as impacting their floral enterprise” across the US (Debra Prinzing, 2021).
I would recommend delving into this article if you’d like to see more about the water issues we’re facing on a global scale.
What changes can growers make to prepare?
Many growers are considering and preparing for a new type of future. Due to climate change, it seems unavoidable that these kinds of dry periods will continue to occur.
Some ways documented include collecting rainfall, petitioning for more local reservoirs & water conservation efforts, shifting watering patterns, growing more drought resistant plants and hardy perennials, mulching thoroughly and improving soil quality to retain more water.
This year, a few growers under limitations prioritised watering plants that needed it the most. Some started to let annuals go over, or used their water rations sparingly on perennial plants, which grow for a much longer period and thus are more valuable to save in a drought (FFTF FB Page, 2022).
Water hungry plants may no longer be able to grow in certain climates, and growers are having to consider the impacts of droughts in their planting schedules.
I’d really recommend further reading of this one for how specific US flower farms are beginning to adapt to these water shortages, which is full of first hand accounts from growers themselves.
“As temperatures rise because of climate change, more water evaporates from land and water bodies. Along with changes in precipitation patterns, this can contribute to unusual dryness in some areas.” -US EPA.
For full US study into “Climate Change & Extreme Weather” please click on the above image.
The water footprint of flowers
This Journal entry hasn’t come to a neat conclusion, because honestly, there isn’t one.
This is a topic that is prominently fixed into all flower growers minds as they attempt to prepare for the future.
Our changing climate and extreme weather conditions will impact not just our flowers, but everything that comes from the earth.
How we combat this, prepare and ready ourselves is a pretty intensive topic, that I’ve only just scratched the surface of. For further understanding, I’d recommend reading any of the below referenced pieces.
References
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/water-uptake-and-transport-in-vascular-plants-103016037/
The Nature and Properties of Soils, Ray R. Weil, 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/12/drought-declared-england-hosepipe-ban-water-restrictions
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/625006/LIT_10104.pdf
https://www.iatp.org/news/current-water-crisis-floriculture-needs-20-times-more-water-than-cotton-cultivation
https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/made-on-earth/the-new-roots-of-the-flower-trade/
https://www.rhs.org.uk/garden-jobs/watering
http://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_thumb/Why-do-plants-need-water.pdf
http://www.perennialresource.com/photo_essay.php?ID=311
https://www.airowater.com/blog/effect-of-water-scarcity-on-plants/
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/growers-library/flowers/flower-farming/heat-and-drought-how-flower-farmers-adapt-to-changing-climate.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844387/
https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/gardening-in-a-changing-world/climate-change
Gardening in a Changing Climate, RHS, 2018
https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/follow-the-food/a-staple-food-to-withstand-disaster/
https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-change-science/understanding-link-between-climate-change-and-extreme-weather_.html
https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/news/gardening-during-drought
