Page 12 - Water Every Drop Counts

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Demand for Water

Gushing Forward

Fifty years ago, talk of a global water shortage would have been looked
upon as a joke. Earth had half the number of humans living on it and they

were not as wealthy as we are today. They consumed fewer calories
and ate less meat. They needed to draw
only a third of the water that we presently
Everything we do, we could do
with less water. draw from our rivers to produce their food.

– Peter Gleick
Today earth has seven billion humans to
cater to! No surprise that the competition for
water resources is much more intense. With population expected to

touch nine billion by 2050, things are sure to get more complicated, very
complicated.

THE WATER FOOTPRINT
We use water for drinking, cooking and washing as well as for producing all the
things we need in our day to day lives such as food, fiber, milk,
electricity, paper………. The water footprint is an indicator
of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water
use of a consumer,
or a producer. The
water footprint
of an individual,
community or
business is defined
as the total volume
of freshwater that
is used to produce the
goods and services consumed by the
individual or community or produced by the business.

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