Water Footprint

♤ World water use has been growing rapidly in the last hundred years and it is estimated that by 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity.

♤ Water usage has increased owing to increasing population, industrialization, demand for water intensive products etc. Change in precipitation pattern due to climate change has proved to be further deterrent.

♤ What is Water Footprint?

o The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business.

o A water footprint can be calculated for any well-defined group of consumers (e.g., an individual, family, village, state or nation) or producers (e.g., a public organization, private enterprise or economic sector).

o It is a geographically explicit indicator, not only showing volumes of water use and pollution, but also the locations.

♤ The calculation for water footprint includes the total amount of freshwater consumed along the supply- chain of a product. For example, in a cup of coffee many will assume that only water in the cup is consumed however 140 litres of water is involved in growing, producing, packaging, and shipping the coffee beans.

♤ Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater and with increasing food demand it will use more and more water.

♤ Comparing water footprints of different management practises in agriculture can evaluate drought tolerance, water use efficiency, effective use of rainfall and the significance of irrigation.

♤ Population ecologists use it as an indicator to show the total water requirement of a nation and the impact of human consumption on the natural water environment.

♤ Simple water calculators have been designed by many agencies and comparing the data of water footprint shows that many countries are over-exploiting this resource.

♤ India’s water footprint:

o India uses 13% of global water resources and is the largest consumer after China (12%) and the USA (9%).

o Huge population, water intensive consumption pattern, agricultural economy and high water requirement per unit of crop production are the main reasons behind high footprint.

♤ We must adopt production techniques that require less water per unit product to reduce our water footprint. This can be done in various ways:

o In agriculture we can use water productive technique like rainwater harvesting and supplementary irrigation.

o We need to shift our consumption pattern that requires less water. We can change or food basket and include indigenous and seasonal food.

o Water is highly subsidised in our country; hence trends of over exploitation and wastage are prevalent. Reducing subsidy might help to people to realise the importance of this precious resource.

o Awareness campaigns on negative impact of increasing water foot print can be organised.

o National targets on water footprint can be translated to specific reduction for products, producers, industry, goods etc.

♤ Reducing water footprint must be of utmost priority for nations otherwise in absence of water this planet will become uninhabitable.