What Is Water Footprint Of A Product

Water footprint of common consumer items.

What is water footprint of a product.

Your water footprint is the amount of water you consume in your daily life including the water used to grow the food you eat to produce the energy you use and for all of the products in your daily life your books music house car furniture and the clothes you wear. The water footprint of a product is the total volume of freshwater used to produce the product summed over the various steps of the production chain. The water footprint of a product refers not only to the total volume of water used. The water footprint wf is an indicator that accounts for both the direct domestic water use and indirect water required to produce industrial and agricultural products water use of a consumer or producer.

Table 1 lists a sampling of water footprints for the manufacturing of some common consumer goods. The water footprint measures the amount of water used to produce each of the goods and services we use. It can be measured in cubic metres of water per tonne of production or litres per kilogram gallons per pound or per bottle of milk. It can be measured for a single process such as growing rice for a product such as a pair of jeans for the fuel we put in our car or for an entire multi national company.

It also refers to where and when the water is used. The water footprint of a product is the amount of water that is consumed and polluted in all processing stages of its production. Created in 2002 by arjen hoekstra the water footprint is one of the family of environmental footprints that help us understand how our production and consumption choices are affecting natural resources. Compare how much water is used to make a variety of products so that you can choose to reduce your water footprint.

A product water footprint tells us how much pressure that product has put on freshwater resources. A water footprint is measured in terms of the volume of water consumed evaporated and polluted. A water footprint is the volume of total direct and indirect water consumed evaporated and polluted contaminated during a specified stage of a product s lifecycle or the whole lifecycle from the material sourcing stage all the way through to disposal. For those that want to find out more the green blue and grey water footprint shows the source of water consumed and the volume of fresh water required for assimilation of pollutants.