A water footprint is the amount of water used to produce the goods and services we consume. Water use can be direct such as drinking and household water or it can be indirect such as the life cycle water usage in the production of our food, clothes, gasoline and other goods we use. Be sure to click on the link and calculate your own water footprint. Do you use below the national average? Are there any surprising results? What ideas do you have for reducing your personal water footprint?
Further information on WATER Footprints
A water footprint has three components: green, blue, and grey. Green water is collected from rainfall or plants, Blue water is surface or ground water and grey is polluted water.
When water is used it is important to differentiate if the water is withdrawn or consumed. Water withdrawal is the total water removed from the source (lake, river, groundwater) water consumed is only the water not returned to the source.
A carbon footprint estimates how our lifestyle, household or business impacts climate change. Many activities such as electricity production, transportation, production of goods and services, agriculture and land use change emit greenhouse gases. In order to standardize the results these gases are measured in terms of the global warming potential (GWP). This means that all greenhouse gases are assessed based on how well they trap heat and their atmospheric lifetime. The gases are compared to the warming potential of CO2, the most abundant greenhouse gas besides water vapor. The GWP can be converted to temperature change based on climate sensitivity, a term which describes the stability of the earth’s climate. Finally the temperature change is converted to potential impacts which affect humans and all life on earth.
Note about Global Warming Potential (GWP)
Because different greenhouse gases have different lifetimes, the global warming potential is changing as the gases are removed the atmosphere by natural processes. Typically the GWP is measured on both 20 year and 100 year time horizons.
