John Anthony Allan (27 January 1937 – 15 April 2021), widely known as Tony Allan, was a pioneering scholar of water resources, development, and political economy. His work reshaped global understanding of water scarcity and food security. In his final years, he was Emeritus Professor of Geography at King’s College London. Previously, he was a Professor at the School of Oriential and African Studies (SOAS), a constituent college of the University of London. He taught and mentored generations of students on water, development, and environmental governance.

Professor Tony Allan at the 2012 Stockholm Water Prize Laureates Seminar in the Presence and Honour of H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf

Tony Allan is best known for developing the concept of virtual water, which demonstrated how countries experiencing physical water scarcity can meet their food needs through international trade rather than through unsustainable domestic water use. By showing that water-intensive food imports effectively embed “virtual” water flows, his work challenged dominant engineering-led and scarcity-driven narratives and provided a powerful analytical framework for understanding the political and economic dimensions of water security. The concept has since become central to academic research, policy analysis, and global debates on water, food, and trade.

Tony Allan’s scholarship was characterised by its strong interdisciplinary orientation, combining geography, political economy, development studies, and policy analysis. His work was especially influential in the Middle East and North Africa, where he demonstrated how food imports and global markets have long functioned as silent but crucial components of national water security strategies. Beyond academia, his ideas informed the work of international organisations, governments, and policy practitioners, and helped reframe water scarcity as a socio-political challenge rather than a purely technical or hydrological problem.