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Both Natural & Man-Made

“When the Well’s dry, we know the Worth of Water.”
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1746)

Colin Legerton

Water Footprint per Capita (m³/yr)
Haiti
Mozambique
UK

Japan “The average Californian’s
Global Average water footprint is slightly less
than the average American’s,
France but about 80% higher than the

Australia global average.”
USA
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

* Mekonnen, M.M. and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2011) National water footprint accounts: the green, blue and grey water footprint
of production and consumption, Value of Water Research Report Series No. 50, UNESCO-IHE, Delft, the Netherlands.

espite the severity of the current drought social unrest and even war. Scholars identify
in the Western United States, the region a devastating long-term drought in Syria as a
Dis not alone in the challenges residents main factor in its now-four-year-long civil war.
face. According to the United Nations Food Combined with mismanagement, including
and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO), since subsidies on water-intensive crops and
1900, droughts have affected two billion people promotion of poor irrigation techniques, the
and have been responsible for eleven million drought led to severe crop failure, massive
deaths, more than any other physical hazard. migration from farms into cities, and thus
The agricultural, economic, and social greater stress on urban areas. Some are even
stresses caused by drought can also lead to concerned that water will one day become a

1 6 TZU CHI USA SUMMER 2015