What is your water footprint?

Did you know that it takes approximately 2,000 gallons of water to produce 1 lb. of beef?  According to Water Footprint, a new website that measures the footprint of water used by us on our planet.

People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, paper, cotton clothes, etc. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business.

Here are some facts and figures listed on the website:

  • The production of one kilogram of beef requires 16 thousand litres of water.
  • To produce one cup of coffee we need 140 litres of water.
  • The water footprint of China is about 700 cubic meter per year per capita. Only about 7% of the Chinese water footprint falls outside China.
  • Japan with a footprint of 1150 cubic meter per year per capita, has about 65% of its total water footprint outside the borders of the country.
  • The USA water footprint is 2500 cubic meter per year per capita.

https://i0.wp.com/www.waterfootprint.org/images/SmallWFPlogo.jpg

This website has published case studies and other publications, national and coporate water footprints and a footprint calculator to measure your own personal water footprint.

I calculated my personal footprint with these results based on my gender, my diet (vegetarian) and my annual income, using the quick and dirty calculator:

Your water footprint = 578 in cubic meter per year

Components of your total water footprint and comparison to the global average

1243

578

477

0

102

Global Yours Food Industry Domestic

 

Contribution of individual food categories to your total water footprint

107

-0

6

16

244

104

Cereal Meat Vegetable Fruit Dairy Others*

 

You can also use the extended calculator which is a more detailed picture based on your consumption.  Here are my results:

Your total water footprint = 225 cubic meter per year

Components of your total water footprint

163

46

16

225

Food Domestic Industrial Total
Contribution of individual food category towards the total water footprint

47

0

4

5

18

41

1

17

16

14

cereal meat vegetable fruit dairy Stimulant Fat sugar egg Others
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