"A water footprint is the total volume of fresh water used by an individual, a household, a business, a community or a country. For an individual, it includes water used directly (for example, for drinking, bathing, cooking and washing clothes) and water used indirectly (for example, in producing things such as food, paper, electricity, steel and cotton clothes)."
A water footprint is used to compare the water usage of different countries so data and information can be easily compared. National water use is consists of two parts:
- Internal Water Footprint: is the water used inside the country. (For example: the production of goods and services within Australia)
- External Water Footprint: is the water used to produce goods and services that are imported (brought in) from other countries. (For example: An Australian company might operate or work with businesses in other countries which makes goods to bring back into Australia, while they are not using Australian water, it is still considered part of the Australian water footprint.)
- Virtual Water: Is the amount of fresh water used when a product is create or made. (For example: if you by a car that was made overseas and 150,000 litres of water was used to make that car, you are using another countries water).
Some facts and figures:
- The production of one kilogram of beef requires 15 THOUSAND litres of water (93% green, 4% blue, 3% grey water footprint).
- The water footprint of a 150-gram soy burger produced in the Netherlands is about 160 litres. A beef burger from the same country costs about 1000 litres.
- The water footprint of Chinese consumption is about 1070 cubic metres per year per person (just under half an olympic swimming pool used by every person every year). FYI - China has a population of 1.357 billion people
- The water footprint of US citisens is 2840 cubic meter per year per person (or just over one olympic sized swimming pool). About 20% of this water footprint is external. The largest external water footprint of US consumption lies in the Yangtze river basin, China.
- The global water footprint of humanity in the period 1996-2005 was 9087 billions of cubic meters per year (that equates to 3,634,800,000 olympic sizes swimming pools!) (74% green, 11% blue, 15% grey). Agricultural production contributes 92% to this total footprint.
- Water scarcity (lack of water) affects over 2.7 billion people for at least one month each year.
- Read more here
Check out this video to see how much water goes into making the food that we eat:
(8oz = approximately 1 cup)
(8oz = approximately 1 cup)
View more here
Here are some ways water supply authorities (Water Corp) encourage households to reduce the amount of water they use:
- Public education campaigns (advertisements, television commercials, water wise education)
- Increasing the price they charge for water use (if water is more expensive people will waste less water)
- Using and Installing water-efficient products and appliances
- Imposing water restrictions
Can you think of any current water restrictions in Perth?
Complete these questions in your work book:
- What is meant by a 'water footprint'?
- Explain the difference between a country's 'internal' and 'external' water footprint
- What is virtual water?
- Why has Australia's water usage been decreasing?
- Complete the interactive activity on page 117 of Pearson