Reducing Water Footprint
Posted by: Alan Mokbel in Untagged on
May 11, 2008
"Carbon Footprint" is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide."Water Footprint"can be translated as the impact of human activites on the world water resources, shall we say, in m3 of water.
As we hear more news about the fresh water shortage the world is experiencing, one comes think how to positively impact this shortage by doing little actions to reduce their consumption of water.
Some of the most common ideas are: shorten shower time, don't let water run during dishes or brushing our teeth, use water savers in the shower, use dual-flushing system in the toilet tank.
More complicated ways to reduce this footprint would be to collect rain water and use it to irrigate the lawn or even as a source of water for the toilet.
More challenging ideas are to recycle grey water and reuse it for secondary purposes and hence give that same volume of water a "second life cycle" before rejecting it into the environment.
How about you? do you care about this phenomenon? is it just a hoax?
What do you do to recude your water footprint?
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Of the more than 7,500 desalination plants in operation worldwide, 60% are located in the Middle East. The world's largest plant in Saudi Arabia produces 128 MGD of desalted water. In contrast, 12% of the world's capacity is produced in the Americas, with most of the plants located in the Caribbean and Florida.
Water is not scarce, (Over 70% of our planet is covered in it), However portable water is.
Reducing your water footprint may not be a sustainable solution. Managing your footprint however is the key. We generate a lot of wastewater through our everyday use (domestic and industrial). There are many solutions available to save or recover used water. Many developed countries implement policies on dumping of used wastewater and these include treatment and possibly reuse of the same. Third world nations, the under developed and developing nations on the other hand do not have stringent regulations that promote the conservation of water and treatment of wastewater. And hence, we notice a marked scarcity of portable water solutions in these nations.
The need for the hour is the creation of a Global Water Conservation Policy and to rope in Organizations (NGO's etc.) to implement strategies of conservation, reuse and treatment as humanitarian initiatives in these developing and under developed nations.
Portable water will continue to be a scarce commodity but we do possess sufficient technology to ensure that it does not bite us.