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It’s common to think about water consumption in terms of how long you’re in the shower, how often you run the dishwasher, whether you left the sprinkler on, or someone forgot to turn off the tap. But it’s important not to forget the water footprint of external goods and services, such as foods, because it’s probably larger than you suspect. Here is a disturbing list of how many gallons of water are needed to produce various products (via National Geographic, “The Hidden Water We Use”).
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/embedded-water/
Beverages:
1 gallon (3.8 litres) of milk requires 880 gallons (3,331 L) of water.
1 gallon of wine requires 1,008 gallons of water.
1 gallon of coffee requires 880 gallons of water. “If everyone in the world drank a cup of coffee each morning, it would ‘cost’ about 32 trillion gallons (120 billion cubic metres) of water a year.”
1 gallon of tea requires 128 gallons of water.
1 cup of orange juice requires 53 gallons of water.
Grains:
1 pound (0.5 kg) of wheat requires 132 gallons (500 L) of water. “Wheat production accounts of 12 percent of global water use for the planet’s total agricultural crop production.”
1 pound of rice requires 449 gallons of water.
1 pound of corn requires 108 gallons of water
Meat:
1 pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water.
1 pound of goat requires 127 gallons of water.
1 pound of pork requires 576 gallons of water.
1 pound of chicken requires 468 gallons of water.
Other:
1 cotton T-shirt requires 713 gallons of water.
500 sheets of paper require 1,321 gallons of water.
1 lb of chocolate requires 3,170 gallons of water.
Professor Arjen Hoekstra created the concept of the water footprint: “Many countries have significantly externalized their water footprint, importing water-intensive goods from elsewhere. This puts pressure on the water resources in the exporting regions, where too often mechanisms for wise water governance and conservation are lacking.” Twenty percent of the U.S. water footprint — 750, 248 cubic gallons per person annually — is external, interestingly located in the Yangtze River basin of China.
While we can’t stop buying food altogether, it is possible to make consumer choices that limit the amount of water used to maintain our lifestyle. Go vegetarian, or at least opt for less wasteful meats, such as goat. Order a soy burger instead of beef. Drink water straight from the tap instead of coffee, tea, or orange juice. Don’t buy that extra cotton T-shirt.
Keep in mind that water scarcity affects 2.7 billion people worldwide for at least a month each year. Water should not be treated as disposable. It’s a privilege, and deserves great respect because, without it, we cannot survive.
Article by Katherine Martinko
Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/your-water-footprint-is-probably-bigger-than-you-think.html#ixzz2swdcbbt0
Quite the eyeopener when viewed this way!:-o
Posted : February 10, 2014 6:24 pm
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While it looks like the planet's surface is covered mostly in water, the fact is there is very little water on this planet when you compare it to the size of the planet as a whole. The USGS created this image to give us a little perspective.
USGS states, "About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water. But water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and in aquifers, and even in you and your dog. Still, all that water would fit into that "tiny" ball. The ball is actually much larger than it looks like on your computer monitor or printed page because we're talking about volume, a 3-dimensional shape, but trying to show it on a flat, 2-dimensional screen or piece of paper. That tiny water bubble has a diameter of about 860 miles, meaning the height (towards your vision) would be 860 miles high, too! That is a lot of water."
It may be a lot of water, but almost all of it is not usable for us. Over 96% is saline water in the oceans, and of the fresh water that's left, most of that is locked up in ice at the poles, is underground were we don't reach it, or is in the atmosphere.
Click link for photo: http://www.treehugger.com/clean-water/if-you-put-all-water-earth-one-place-itd-look-like-this.html
Posted : March 1, 2014 8:26 pm
