Water footprint

Abstract

Uneven water distribution in the world is the main reason today that some countries face problems due to water scarcity. Human activities consume and pollute large amounts of water. Globally, agriculture is the largest water user by volume. However, the water used by industrial and household sectors is still significant. Water consumption and pollution are caused by specific activities such as irrigation, bathing, washing, cleaning, cooling and by various other processes. Little attention has been paid to how much water use and pollution ultimately result from such activities, and how much water is consumed by communities, compared to the attention paid to the structure of the public economy that supplies consumer goods and services. Overall, to mitigate water scarcity problems, there are several approaches that can be made, such as inter-basin water transfer, increasing efficiency of water consumption and also using new concepts such as virtual water and the water footprint. The footprint of a product is the amount of fresh water used to produce it, measured across the complete supply chain. Water footprint is a multidimensional indicator that shows the amount of water consumed by the source as well as the amount and types of contamination.