Did you know that even though 70% of our earth is water, only 2.5% of that is usable for all living things? Water scarcity is becoming more of an issue as 66% of the global population live in severe water scarcity for at least 1 month of the year.
This is going to affect every person, animal and plant on earth if we don’t change the way we are consuming water soon. It isn’t even that difficult to do. It is time to wake up and take a look at our personal water footprints.
A personal water footprint is the calculated amount of freshwater used by a person directly or indirectly over a period of time. The indirect use of water takes into account the water used or polluted in order for the person to consume products and services.
For example, if you purchase a new pair of jeans every year, your water footprint will increase by 7,600L. It takes that much water to grow the cotton, wash it and then dye it. This is something I would never think about when purchasing a pair of jeans!
This “hidden” water usage is called virtual water. There are three types of water that make up this virtual water – green, blue and grey. Green water is the water that is collected in soil that is used by the plants that make our products. Blue water is the water we use in agriculture taken from streams, lakes and aquifers. Grey water is the polluted waste water that can can be recycled for some uses.
Your personal water footprint will take into account the actual water you are using in your home (kitchen, gardens, bathroom, drinking) plus the virtual water used to create the products you use.
A water footprint is a very complicated calculation. It doesn’t take much time to use a free online calculator and really helps to see how the choices you make affect your water footprint.
I’ve done lots of research on the subject and have compiled a list of 14 very interesting facts about water consumption.
1. A Water Labeling Standard is Being Developed
You know all of those nutritional labels on all packaged food? Well, a similar label standard is being developed to educate consumers about the water footprint for food and products. It is in it’s early stages of development and approval but it could be a normal part of our future.
If you are the type of person that reads labels, this will be very interesting for you. I’m sure if you were given the information about the water footprint of two of the same type of product, you would choose the one with the lower footprint. This might give companies that are doing a good job in this area the chance to market the reason their product is better.
Of course we all want to see less packaging on our products so the idea is to set a standard for levels of water footprints and a seal (an icon to represent the level of a product like a gold seal) can be placed on each product.
As well as the water footprint seal, a QR scan code on each product can give the consumer more information about the details of the types of water used in the product (green, blue and grey).
2. There Is Not An Infinite Supply Of Life Sustaining Water
Only 2.5% of the water on earth is fresh water which is the type of water required to sustain all life forms. Only 0.3% of all fresh water is surface water (rivers, streams, great lakes), 70% ice caps and polar regions that are not available for use and 30% is ground water found in underground aquifers.
There are 37 major aquifers on our planet. With the help of special satellites called GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), we can now measure the amount of water in these major aquifers. 21 of them are on track to being permanently depleted. Irreversibly.
Why is this water all of a sudden depleting? Agriculture accounts for 70% of fresh water use, 22% goes toward industrial uses (electricity, product creation, fossil fuel industry) and 8% is direct usage.
Unfortunately the natural process of recycling the water through precipitation does not keep up with the global human demand for water. So at some point we will run out. In fact, only 1% of the fresh water used is replenished by rain and snowfall.
3. A Quarter of Sea Level Rise Comes From Aquifers
Contrary to popular belief, the rise in sea level is not just from melting ice. Other causes of the rising sea level are thermal expansion, melting glaciers and water from aquifers.
As humans take water from aquifers for agriculture, the water ends up draining into the sea. In fact, 25% of sea level rise is from the water draining off farms. This source of rise in sea level is greater than the amount that comes from melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica combined.
4. It Takes 37 Gallons Of Water To Produce 1 Cup Of Coffee
The water footprint of coffee is very complex. 99% of this footprint happens in the growing of the coffee plants. The majority of coffee is grown in mono-crop plantation (a field of coffee plants) as opposed to a biodiverse forest. This might make it easier to pick but it also makes it require much more water to grow as much is lost to the soil and evaporation.
The processing of coffee beans causes grey water (polluted water) which also contributes to it’s water footprint.
The virtual water footprint of coffee also takes into account the location that the water is removed from the ground water system. In fact most places that consume the coffee (Europe, USA, Canada) import this water footprint from places in the world where water is already scarce (China, Brazil).
5. 3 Billion People Live In Areas With Water Scarcity
For at least 1 month of the year, 3 billion people have difficulty accessing fresh water. Many of these people suffer from this scarcity all year round and many just for one season each year. Some contributing factors are droughts, increased human demands and water pollution.
For 1.2 billion of these people, there is not access to fresh drinking water.
6. One Pound Of Beef Has A Water Footprint Of 15,000 L/kg
Why does a kg of beef need so much water – do cows really drink that much? Actually, most of the water used to produce a kg of beef is used to grow the food that feeds the cattle and it is predominantly green water (rain).
4% of the water footprint comes from blue water (ground water) used in the cattle troughs. 3% of the water footprint is water used to dilute runoff from pastures and feed crops.
Beef has the highest water footprint of any livestock because the cattle live a long time and are large. A kg of chicken has the waterfootprint of 4300L/kg (which is very similar to the average for legumes), less that 1/3 of beef.
7. 10 Gallons Per Day Is Lost To Leaks
On average, one’s personal water footprint includes about 10 gallons / day of water that is lost to leaks in the plumbing in their home. This could be a leaky faucet, hoses, drains or pipes. It is important that we maintain the plumbing in our homes so prevent this from happening because it adds up quickly.
One of the most common leaks in a house is in the toilet. Many toilets have faulty flush bar or handles that need to be jiggled to stop the water from running. In other cases, the toilet might have a leaky flapper valve that allows the water to flow out of the tank into the bowl. You can easily test this by adding a drop of food colouring to your tank and wait a few hours to see if this colour shows up on your bowl.
8. Mellow Yellow Is The No-Brainer Way To Decrease Your Water Footprint
Speaking of toilets, you can decrease your water footprint by about 2500 gallons / year (that’s almost 10,000 L) by doing nothing at all. That is, NOT flushing when you only pee. You know the sayings “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down”.
Some people might find this gross and are unwilling to do it but this practice is becoming mainstream. In fact many offices are now suggesting their employees do this in their shared toilets. If you learn a little about it, you can avoid being the pre-flusher in this situation.
Some studies show that actually flushing the toilet causes much more spray than peeing on a mellow yellow toilet. That means that it is actually cleaner to not flush.
Although pee is not technically sterile as many people believe, it is very close to it. And if you are a well hydrated person, your pee is not very yellow or stinky at all (unless it is asparagus season). Maybe this way of flushing (or not) can push people to drink more water and improve their health AND decreasing your water footprint.
9. Greywater System In A Home
To decrease your water footprint, why not capture some of the usable water going down the shower drain or laundry to be used in other areas of your home like gardens and flushing toilets. This is pretty simple to do and the materials required are not expensive.
The water from the drain of a washing machine can be diverted to a surge tank. This would be put on a switch so you can decide when you want the water to go into the greywater system as opposed to down the actual drain. As the water enters the surge tanks, it is slowed down in order to filter out the large debris like hair that can clog the pipes.
After the surge tanks, an irrigation system can be set up for watering the gardens or filling the toilets for flushing. Greywater systems save an average home about 40,000 gallons of water per year.
My favourite installation of a greywater system is the Japanese toilet sink combo. These toilets have a sink where the tank goes behind the toilet. Each flush fills the tank through the faucet so you can wash your hands with the water that will provide the next flush.
10. New Clothing Has A Large Water Footprint
Not only does new clothing have a high carbon footprint, but also a poor water footprint. Textiles production accounts for 20% of industrial water pollution globally. Of that water pollution, 85% is caused by dying the fabrics.
If you can extend the lifespan of your clothing by 9 months, you can reduce your clothing’s water footprint by 5-10%. Cotton especially has a high water footprint so if you can try to purchase organic cotton, which at least avoids the pollutants caused with regular cotton pesticides and fertilizers.
To help make your clothing last, you can wash it less, hang dry it and even ironing occasionally can keep it looking fresh.
11. “Eco Friendly” BioFuel Has A Greater Water Footprint Than Gasoline
Corn is the main crop used for biofuel – ethanol. This is perceived as an eco-friendly alternative energy source to gasoline however even the carbon footprint comparison of the two is debatable. Plus the water footprint of biofuel is definitely higher than that of gasoline.
For every gallon of gasoline, up to 6 gallons of water are used to produce it. For every gallon of biofuel produced, 10 – 324 gallons of water are used. And since the majority of the corn fields are grown in the Great Plains, most of the water used to irrigate are coming directly from an aquifer.
12. Agriculture Must Change
70% of the world’s fresh water use is spent on agriculture. That is an equivalent of 3.3 billion pools every year to grow food. But 36% of this agriculture is grown for livestock and 9% is used to grow crops (mostly corn) to produce biofuels.
Only 55% of the agriculture grown globally is used to directly feed humans. With the stresses on the limited fresh water resources, we will need to make some changes to be able to feed our ever growing population. One recommendation would be to shift the use of farmlands to grow crops that directly feed humans and reduce the amount of meat and dairy from our diets.
13. Choose Seeds Over Nuts
The natural switch away from meat and dairy products will see a rise in nut consumption but is this sustainable? Tree nuts like almonds are some of the most water intensive crops in the world. The locations that 74% of irrigated nuts are currently grown are already under water stress and much of the water used to grow the plants evaporates.
If you compare the water footprint of almonds at 23 gallons / ounce to that of beef which is 106 gallons / ounce you can see that they are still better than growing beef. Plus they require less physical space. But more changes could be made to grow nuts in locations that have strong water security.
Interestingly, seeds have a much lower water footprint than nuts. For example for growing 1 pound of pistachio uses 1092 gal of water and 1 pound of pumpkin seeds uses 12 gallons of water. Plus, when you grow a fruit or veggie for seeds you also get the fruit. Two birds, one stone!
14. It’s Easy To Calculate Your Personal Water Footprint
Similar to the free carbon footprint calculators, there are several great free water footprint calculators available online. I spent about 10 minutes filling out the forms to calculate my personal water footprint.
The first set of questions generally asks about your water consumption in your home (dishwater, laundry, toilets etc.). The second section has a series of questions about food, shopping and energy consumption.
For me personally, watercalculator.org showed 81 gallons/day with direct household water usage but after talking about shopping, food, recycling, energy in my province I scored 987 gallons / day.
I then tried activesustainability.com which had more detailed questions about flights, recyling and detailed food consumption habits (beef/poultry/pork, milk and coffee). On this site I had a value of 34,274 gallons / year with 1 transatlantic flight / year vs 1,400 gallons / year without the flight. Eek! Another reason I need to stop flying – sigh.
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