President of the Water Environment Federation
I'm honored to post the very first blog for the Water Environment Federation, and we hope it’s the beginning of many conversations that will get folks thinking and talking about water. Water was definitely all the buzz last week at WEFTEC.08™ in Chicago, where 2008 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate Professor John Anthony Allan,
of King’s College London, was the keynote speaker who inspired so many with his comments on virtual water, including yours truly.The idea of virtual water--basically how much water is needed to produce the food, clothes, and other goods and services we use every day—is a whole new way of looking at water conservation and sustainability. Much as ‘carbon footprints’ define amounts of energy consumption that can be reduced to improve the environment, virtual water helps define our individual water consumption in terms of water footprints. It’s not at all like the ways we are used to thinking and talking about water.
Like many of us in this business, I’ve spent much of my professional life talking about water conservation in terms of taking shorter showers, turning off water when you brush your teeth, minimizing outdoor water use and not using your toilet as a trashcan. These ideas are readily shared when we talk about water conservation, but despite our constant education and outreach, I’m not sure people are really thinking about all the water they use, much less changing their behavior. But here is an idea - what if water quality experts start talking about smaller water footprints instead of shorter showers? I wonder what impact we may have in affecting people’s “water behavior” if we started doing this?
I encourage you to visit http://www.waterfootprint.org to find out that water footprint size varies depending on many things including lifestyle, product choices, even nationality. According to the Water Footprint Network, in China the annual water footprint is 700 cubic meters per person versus 2500 cubic meters per person in the United States. Some of that difference relates to products created with domestic water resources versus products created using water from outside the country.
There are other considerations such as diet, and we like our hamburgers!It takes 16,000 liters of water to produce just 1 kilogram of beef. So if you have a salad for lunch instead of a hamburger, you can reduce your water footprint (and save a few calories in the process!) It’s all about understanding how the choices you make impact the water we have, and it’s time to get the conversational ball rolling down the road to a greener, more sustainable future!
Meanwhile I invite you to visit http://www.waterfootprint.org and find out more about what it takes to reduce your own water footprint. And I ask you to share your comments and ideas for reducing personal water footprints here on the WEF WaterBlog.
Love that the Waterfootprint.org site lets you calculate your own water footprint, but wish there were an easier way to do so. It asks for you to fill out quantities in kg, such as how much cereal, meat, corn, etc. you consume in a week. I don't think many of us have any idea how much we're consuming. Is there a shortcut to use in estimating these figures?
ReplyDeleteI also struggled to find a simple shortcut and found this one. I multiple the lbs of food by 45 % (0.45) and that should convert lbs of food to kg. Or if you'd would like to "ballpark" the numbers, just divide the lbs of food by 2.
ReplyDeleteThe Professor's talk was thought-provoking and should cause all of us as water professionals to think about how we can incorporate efficiency into our designs and operations. Congratulations to WEF for highlighting this important component of the sustainability challenge.
ReplyDeleteAnother goood resource is the Alliance for Water Efficiency, a relatively new organization based in Chicago. Lots of good resources on their web site, including an EPA-funded resource library. The address is:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/
I sat through the professor's (25 minute) talk for about 45 minutes. I couldn't take it anymore. Many in the audience walked out ahead of me. He had a fair point; but, it could have been said in 10 minutes with out the diversions and political agenda.
ReplyDeleteGreat first post, Rebecca! Congrats to WEF for joining the blogosphere, but choosing a Blogger site? Come on...I know WEF can do better. Blogger is simply not designed for commercial users. Look at all the anonymous comments...your new web development contractors should set up your own blog on your own server. Or shall I say "our".
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah - Thanks for the comments about WEF's new Water Blog. We always appreciate feedback about any aspect of our website. We have chosen this blogging software as a temporary first step in Phase 1 of our website redesign, knowing that in Phase 2, to be completed over the coming year, we will be better prepared to identify our users' needs. We hope to study the use of this blog over the next few months and collect further feedback to help us shape it into an exceptionally useful tool for our website users.
ReplyDeleteThere is a way to make you water footprint benefit the less fortunate in Africa. UNICEF and Volvic water have partnered together to donate 10-times the amount of Volvic purchased in the US to Ethiopia. Imagine if the water you purchased counted on the beneficial side of your footprint. Check out www.drink1give10.com for more information.
ReplyDelete