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What is the Water Footprint and How Can We Reduce It?



Water is needed for everything we use, wear, buy, sell, and eat. Water footprint measures the amount of water used to produce each of the goods and services we use. It can be measured for a single process, a product like a pair of jeans, the fuel we put in our car, or an entire multinational corporation.


The water footprint could be considered a measure of humanity's appropriation of the volume of freshwater consumed and/or polluted to produce all goods and services consumed by an individual, community, nation, or all of humanity. It looks at both the direct and indirect water use of a process, product, company, or sector, encompassing water consumption and pollution throughout the entire production cycle from the supply chain to the end user.


Water footprint can be used to measure the water required to produce all goods and services consumed by an individual or society, a nation, or all of humanity.


This includes both the direct water footprint, which is the water directly used by individuals, and the indirect water footprint, which is the total water footprint of all products consumed.


For example, producing 1 cup of milk requires 225 liters of water, 1 cup of coffee requires 130 liters of water, and manufacturing a pair of jeans requires 10,850 liters of water.


Considering this information, we can support water conservation by making our consumption more conscious and opting for more sustainable products.

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