Is your water footprint bigger than your carbon footprint?

Have you ever thought about how much water it takes to produce the food we eat or the products we buy? I was really surprised to learn that it takes a staggering amount!

"Every drop of water has a purpose"
I had the opportunity to listen to an address given by Frank Rijsberman of google.org, where he began by introducing the idea of a water footprint. Similar to how a carbon footprint is a measure of one's individual carbon impact on the atmosphere, in 2002, experts began talking about the water footprint as a measure of the total amount of water used by a consumer or producer. One can learn more here.

At this event, I learned that water consumption for drinking comprises only a tiny fraction of overall water usage. And in fact, using water for agriculture to produce the crops we eat makes up the overwhelming majority of what water is used for. Would it surprise you, as it did me, that every calorie in a meal you ate today took 1 liter (L) of water to produce? So the lunch that we ate today which might easily have 1000 calories took 1000 L of water to get to your plate. Or that a can of coke with its water-expensive sugar, aluminum, manufacturing and transporting takes orders of magnitude more water to produce than the 12 fluid ounces one drinks. It's important to point out that one's water footprint is geographically specific, but for me as an average consumer, the illustration was clear that there is surprising and unknown water costs to things we see every day.

Why care about water at all?
There is increasing concern about the crisis of water, which includes not just the scarcity of drinking water, but much more. Forthcoming will be a companion article titled "Water: the blue gold?" that will give a better description about the need, and share about opportunities to give to charities making strong efforts for water.

But I also thought about a small decision I could make to reduce my water footprint. This week, it meant buying groceries from a local farmer’s market. And by doing so, I hope it will reduce the costs of water in delivery and support local, climate-appropriate crops.