Water Footprint

January 11, 2007 1:09 PM

Water footprint- "of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation"
posted by Gyan (9 comments total)

Apparently the water footprint folks are fans of GNOME.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:27 PM on January 11, 2007

I got 1124! woot.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 1:28 PM on January 11, 2007

Very interesting site.
posted by amyms at 1:38 PM on January 11, 2007

I got 89. I don't think it likes FF or something...
posted by Mister_A at 1:45 PM on January 11, 2007

The problem with this is that it provides no sense of scale. I got something like 1600m³ per year, but how much is that? Is it a lot? A little?

I saw somewhere a geographical footprint calculator that I found much more compelling... now if only I could find it.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 2:57 PM on January 11, 2007

It is also very, very important to consider water usage in the context of environmental conditions in your area, and the recycling efforts (water treatment) in your area.

Someone who takes an hour long shower in a place where there is more than enough water in the local system and where each drop is treated and returned back to the system is a different story than someone that is in an area where the water supply just isn't enough for the population.

Hence, in the Midwest water comes from lakes, streams, and other generally local sources where it is rare to have usage restrictions because there is more than enough to go around, but in the West where water is not local and instead sucked into a city from distant places and strained resources, people see use restrictions.
posted by Muddler at 4:12 PM on January 11, 2007

Ah-hah! I found it!. Depressing - the amount I fly (well over their max of 100hrs/yr) doubles my footprint.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 4:17 PM on January 11, 2007

946 - 1282 here, depending on my guesses. It's nearly desert here. And judging by the snowpack (none) it's going to be heavy water restrictions next summer.

89? How did that happen? FF?

the amount I fly (well over their max of 100hrs/yr) doubles my footprint.

Yeah, somehow, we have to fly less. I'm just reading Monbiot's new book and he answers all those nasty things I've always wondering about like what about flights, what about the overall picture, what about an obvious need for rationing and what about the environmentalists who have acted emotionally rather than logically and not been great leaders, thereby. Great book.

And this morning it reminded me of someone I see who has not been mentioned on this site, Jim Merkel and what he called his "wise acre" global sustainability project (web site not working, since the project ended a while back). Since then he's organized bike lanes and now moved on to Dartmouth college as a sustainability coordinator. He probably deserves his own item here, but I'm chicken to start one. He's an unsung hero. Instead of quitting his engineering position in military technology and going home in despair and sitting there getting wasted or something, he went and did cutting edge stuff. And he was one of the early popularizers of the footprint idea on his bike-powered continental tour.
posted by Listener at 10:42 AM on January 12, 2007

quick test = 2807 extended test = 954. hmmmm
posted by holdkris99 at 4:15 PM on January 12, 2007