A Day in the Life – Your Virtual Water Footprint
Through the vision, funding and support of the Alberta Irrigation Projects Association, United Nations Water for Life, Inside Education, EPCOR, Alberta Ingenuity Fund, and Iunctus Geomatics Corp. we are excited to showcase this video from “A Day in the Life: Your Virtual Water Footprint”.
People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, gasoline, paper, clothes, automobles, etc. Take a couple minutes to view this innovative video showcasing a day in the life of someone beginning to understand their own personal Water Footprint.
A 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.
The concept of virtual water is closely related to water footprints; the ability to grasp virtual water flow depends on how much is known and understood about the total amount of freshwater used in the production of commodities and services. Take chocolate, for example, which requires about 2,400 litres per 100 grams. Industrial water footprints vary greatly from country to country. In the United States, it takes about 100 litres of freshwater to produce each US$1 of product. In Germany and the Netherlands, it takes about half that amount (50 litres). In Japan, Australia, and Canada, industries use between 10 to 15 litres of freshwater per US$1 of product.