National Geographic Global Water Footprint
This website is an interactive way to check your water footprint based upon what you consume. It shows where it comes from and how much water comes from certain areas for certain products. On this website you can also look at locations such as the Mississippi River Basin and see how much water is used and for what product in those areas.
This website allows us to understand and be aware of how much of the Earth’s water is being used for each of the common products we use every day such as coffee, corn, barley, cotton, grapes, cocoa, etc. It is important to understand how we are using our water and where that water is coming from. This is especially important because we know that less than 0.3% of our water on the earth is unfrozen fresh water. If we are unaware of how much is being used for the crops we produce and consume, it is possible that we could deplete these water sources quicker than we should be.
(From Kate Desai)
This website is very informative and provides useful and interesting information that everyone should be aware of. I explored the Water Footprint Calculator and looked at the amount of “hidden water” used in the products I consume everyday. My breakfast this morning of a coffee and 2 eggs, for example, was made with 143 gallons of water–106 gallons for two egg and 37 gallons for one cup of coffee. From our class discussions, I knew that I would encounter shocking results from this “hidden water” calculator, but what I was interested in discovering further was the chain of events that lead to the amount of water embedded in these products. To make one t-shirt, for example, requires 713 gallons of water– 45% for irrigation, 41% is rainwater that evaporates off the cotton field, and 41% is for treating wastewater from fields and factories. Overall, this website definitely made me think about how my individual, everyday choices matter.