World Water Day
22 March 2018
This year’s theme: Nature for Water
Campaign: «The answer is in nature»
Earth’s surface is about 70%
TOTAL WATER on EARTH 100
water. That seems quite a lot.
- salt water 97.5
But… how much can we
= fresh water 2.5
humans actually use?
Fresh water, what we call «sweet
water» , is the natural water on Earth’s
surface which is not seawater and is
located in ice caps, glaciers, icebergs,
bogs, ponds, lakes and rivers, and
underground as groundwater in
aquifers and underground streams.
Fresh water generally has low
concentrations of dissolved salts.
…FRESH WATER 100
- frozen water 68.9
- ground water 30.8
=ready available water 0.3
Where is fresh water?
The Earth’s water is
Water cycle finite, but it is infinitely
renewable
Water footprint=
Indicator of human
appropriation of fresh water
Water foot print
70%
20%
10%
Water footprints components
Green water footprint Blue water footprint
rainwater surface or groundwater incorporated into
incorporated into product
product
Grey water footprint
water needed to assimilate pollutants
The daily water footprint of a citizen is around 3800 litres. (EU citizen 25%
higher, that is 5130 litres of water per day).
Our body needs 2 to 4 litres of drinking water per day.
Activities such as drinking, cooking, cleaning, washing our cars, irrigating
our garden represents only the 3% of your personal water footprint.
Most of the water we consume is not visible to our eyes: almost 97% of
our water footprint comes from the products we buy and consume every
day.
This invisible water we consume every day needed to produce the goods
we use and the food we eat is called “virtual water”
Direct water footprint 3%
WATER YOU DIRECTLY USE
(for drinking, washing, etc.)
Indirect water footprint 97%
WATER USED TO PRODUCE WHAT YOU
EAT, WEAR, AND USE IN YOUR DAILY
LIFE
Water footprint
• Producing 1 kg of beef requires 15.000 litres of water
• 1 pizza Margherita (50% mozzarella, bread wheat flour 44%, 6% tomato sauce) 1260 litres
• Coke ½ litre TOTAL 36 litres
• Pasta 1850 litres/kg
• 1 L bottle water 5 litres
• 1 A4 sheet of paper 10 litres
• cotton t-shirt 2500 litres nota
• pair of jeans 8000 litres
• smart phone 910 litres
http://waterfootprint.org/en/resources/interactive-tools/product-gallery/
Shrinking of the Aral sea (central Asia) for irrigating cotton fields.
Access to clean water is
a human right!
Water sustainability
Sustenaibility is “the practice of reserving resources for future generation without
any harm to the nature and other components in it”. Water is one of the most
important natural resources supporting all forms of life on the planet.
Unfortunately, human population is growing (now about 7 billion people) and this
has effects on water consumption and water pollution. Water is a finite resource:
producing our daily products causes significant water consumption and pollution
Water scarcity happens when in an area every person has less than 1000 m3 of
water available p/year. By 2050, the global population could reach 9.5 billion.
Water pollution depends on demographic growth, food, heavy industries, fossil fuel
extractions
So, we have a very low quantity of fresh water available on the planet and it
becomes less every day. The reasons are:
• WE ARE too MANY
• WE PRODUCE, CONSUME AND WASTE MANY GOODS
• WE POLLUTE WATER
TIPS
Become more responsible citizens
We need to change our consumption behaviours
• CLOSE THE TAP WHEN SOAPING OR BRUSHING TEETH
• CHOSE SHOWER INSTEAD OF BATH
• USE LOW FLOW TAPS
• START DISHWASHER AND WASHING MACHINE ONLY WHEN THEY
ARE FULL
• CHOSE WHAT YOU EAT (reducing meat consumption) follow a
balanced diet (a meat-eating person has an average daily water
footprint of 5000 litres per day, for a vegetarian in 2500 litres. (one
meat-free-day a week)
• DON’T BUY THINGS YOU DON’T NEED
• DON’T WASTE FOOD
