STOCKHOLM, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- British researcher John Anthony Allan received the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize here on Thursday for launching the concept of "virtual water."
Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria awarded him the diploma of the prize at a ceremony in the City Hall of Stockholm.
Professor John Anthony Allan from King's College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies pioneered the concept of virtual water in the early 1990s. So he developed a way to calculate how much water is used in the production of anything from a cup of coffee to a hamburger, according to the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) administered the prize.
This calculation method has changed the nature of trade policy and research and is now imbedded in the production of foods and industrial products, SIWI added.
The Stockholm Water Prize is a global award founded in 1990 and presented annually by the Stockholm Water Foundation to an individual, organization or institution for outstanding water-related research.
The prize consists of 150,000 U.S. dollars and a glass sculpture.
