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During my trip i was sad to see that old habbits die hard. there was lots of recluse behavior with water usage and consumption.

so does anyone know what water footprint means and anything that you would like to pitch-in in regards to that?
what is water footprint?
water footprint is the means of measuring the consumption of water in all means by an individual / company . it can be both good or bad , for example bad if someone leaves the tap open while brushing his teeth , or good if he finds a way for example to collect rain and redirect it to the water tanks that would decrease his footprint since he is adding water into his system from a regenerating source :D


environmentally friendly geeks
jadberro wrotewater footprint is the means of measuring the consumption of water in all means by an individual / company . it can be both good or bad , for example bad if someone leaves the tap open while brushing his teeth , or good if he finds a way for example to collect rain and redirect it to the water tanks that would decrease his footprint since he is adding water into his system from a regenerating source :D


environmentally friendly geeks
that is correct but doesnt tell the whole story,
for example it takes 70 litters of water for one apple to grow!
it takes 40 litters of water for one slice of bread!
it takes 200 litters of water for one chicken egg!
it takes 140 litters of water for a cup of coffee!

so my selecting what products you consume, you can also control your water footprint
BashLogic wrote
jadberro wrotewater footprint is the means of measuring the consumption of water in all means by an individual / company . it can be both good or bad , for example bad if someone leaves the tap open while brushing his teeth , or good if he finds a way for example to collect rain and redirect it to the water tanks that would decrease his footprint since he is adding water into his system from a regenerating source :D


environmentally friendly geeks
that is correct but doesnt tell the whole story,
for example it takes 70 litters of water for one apple to grow!
it takes 40 litters of water for one slice of bread!
it takes 200 litters of water for one chicken egg!
it takes 140 litters of water for a cup of coffee!

so my selecting what products you consume, you can also control your water footprint
all these stuff are organic it does not matter whether you decide on consuming them or not they or going back to the system , even the water farmers used to water these went back to the system :) so these things wont mater :) what matters is the human consumption , that tell you the truth ? maybe the earth wasn't designd to cope with humans washing there hands or taking a bath or shower :P
jadberro wrotewater footprint
so my selecting what products you consume, you can also control your water footprint
all these stuff are organic it does not matter whether you decide on consuming them or not they or going back to the system , even the water farmers used to water these went back to the system :) so these things wont mater :) what matters is the human consumption , that tell you the truth ? maybe the earth wasn't designd to cope with humans washing there hands or taking a bath or shower :P
I have to disagree, the more water in question to manufacture or produce a product means that more energy and resource consumption there is to get the water there. for example, if a cup of coffee consumes 140 litters.
just imagine how much work there is and infrastructure underneath that to get the water delivered to the right place and time in the right quantity and state within the different stages of processing! that is a lot!

there is more work and attached/consumed resources with the coffee in comparison to 1kg of potato which consumes 900l of water. far less stages and processes.
i thought we were talking only about the water consumption we never mentioned the means of getting it there :/
that would be the energy foot print as well !
i think what we should bother about is drinking water and not water in general.
if you want to tackle all kinds of water because of delivery, production, ... which can cause pollution, for pollution there are more effective ways than eating fewer eggs and making farmers lose the little they earn.
plus, it doesn't take THAT much energy to bring water to agriculture fields. they don't come in trucks or anything, it's all piping and a water compressor doesnt consume that much energy. there are way many more ways to save energy than through agriculture.
battikh wrotewater compressor
there is nothing caller water compressor , water cant be compressed . water is pumped :)




good points :) in reality we don't have such a problem its the future which we worry about ;)
battikh wrotei think what we should bother about is drinking water and not water in general.
if you want to tackle all kinds of water because of delivery, production, ... which can cause pollution, for pollution there are more effective ways than eating fewer eggs and making farmers lose the little they earn.
plus, it doesn't take THAT much energy to bring water to agriculture fields. they don't come in trucks or anything, it's all piping and a water compressor doesnt consume that much energy. there are way many more ways to save energy than through agriculture.
dont be odd, the choosing between an apple and an egg was just one example.
and contrary to your claim, yes it does consume energy to deliver water. maybe not in lebanon where everyone digs a well and digs a hole next to it for sewage...

in other countries there are huge infrastructure to transfer water from one place to another. in libya there is like 80000km of piping to transfer water from underground reserves. in china they are building a huge damn to store and transfer water as well. water pumps do consume energy contrary to your claim. question is not of saving water and energy alone.

the topic is broader than what you narrowed it down to.

have you heard of water export? i am not talking about the evian bottles, im talking about where for example european comanies encourage and invest in north africa to develop farms that grow roses. whats the big story with that? well 80% of commercially sold roses in europe come from north africa where water is scarce and people are thirsty. the footprint for growing a rose to sell in european market is larger than a the footprint to deliver fresh water to the local inhabitants.
yes, but
1- the water you use in agriculture is not drinking water. you cannot give this water to thirsty people. and if you want to make it drinkable, you have a much bigger process to go though, which is, until today, VERY low "rendement" (what's the word in fenglish? yield?) and is also quiet polluting.

2- you are also not looking at the big picture. if you want to lower the water given for agriculture, or rose planting or whatever, how many businesses are getting affected? how many people are losing their jobs? how many more people will get hungry and thirsty? it's not as simple as you're saying. it's not just: "lets stop spending that much water on roses, give it to thirsty people and we will live in a perfect world".

and it's not that everywhere irrigation costs a lot. in most of the places, it's affordable. otherwise products would be much more expensive in these countries, and importing from countries like lebanon would be more affordable than producing it locally, which would lower the demand of local products.

now yes, we don't live in a perfect world and we might be, in some cases, wasting a lot. but for non-drinkable water, it's not that much of a waste, it's not causing that much problems on the environment and on humankind. there are many other fields to which improvement can cause much better positive results than non-drinkable water. i think that as a priority we should be concentrating on other things 1st.

and the problem with your example of north african roses is not the water footprint. theoretically, you're giving business to these countries. the problem is that you underpay them. if they were payed properly and that euopeen companies would give themself a lower profit margin and using the extra money to pay better the supplier instead of sucking his blood, they would be in a much better situation and would be able to live in better conditions, get access to drinking water, ... but that's a whole different subject, caused by suppliers being underpayed, many african countries led by dictators still being supported by foreign countries coz it suits them, ...
if dictators were not being supported by foreign countries and if they were not underpayed for their products, they would be living in much different conditions.


that's just my opinion, far from stating that it's facts or how things should be done and i'm absolutely open for changing my mind if convinced... but as of now, the way i currently see it, concentrating on improving other things can have much more positive impacts.
Water footprint? Probably think about sewing system and industrial pollution footprint. As soon as water get polluted - it can't be used anymore. If you irrigate apple by 100L of just clean water - it is ok, this water will come back to ecosystem. If you irrigate apple by 10L of water with toxic chemicals (for agriculture, for example to kill insects) - this water will pollute 1000L of water on first raining.
The same also for example about washing clothes with phosphates. Phosphates helps algae to grow. Some types of algae products is poisonous and can kill all living species in lakes, rivers and etc. And at same time it will be much more difficult to clean such water from toxins to make it drinking. Just your water will become dead.
This case is much more important for Lebanon. Water here slowly becoming poisonous.
just to clarify, im not heading a greenpeace topic here with this thread nor did i intended for it to become such. My point was to introduce the latest hype that is going arround. during the last few years it was about carbon footprint, now its about the water footprint.

the world that we live in is far from perfect and inherited from others who did not have the intellectual capacity to think beyond or were not interested due to financial interests. once again, i was not pointing towards that, rather i was "dragged" into that side of the topic ;)

just to mention a few things that is going arround regarding water footprints. ever since the eighties, goverments and private companies arround the world have been keeping an eye on water resources.

american companies have been purchasing vast amounts of land in south america arround an within natural water reservoirs and lakes. The Bush legacy alone has bought lands that are the size of average size european countries! the americans have even established a military base right in the middle of it.

in bolivia, all water rights were sold to private companies (in order to get IMF financial aid, the country was forced to selling all rights to water to private companies in return). what occured was that it became illegal to gather rain water on your own rooftop! all the water was privatized. the people went nuts and overthrew the goverment because of that.

in the states, they are experiencing lots of draughts and the deserts are expanding because of the huge farming that is ongoing there. they are unable to produce at the same quantities as before and demmand for crops keeps on growing. when the carbon footprint was going arround and there were those who were talking about bio fuels, the americans began buying all corn harvests from mexico to a point that the local people no longer had their tortilla bread to eat having the prices quadruple and obliging to invest in more modern agricultural infrastructure not to satisfy their own needs but to satisfy the american needs.

africa is suffering of draughts and deseases. water being exported as byproducts such as the roses that i mentioned or then again as egyptian potatoe.

in china the desert in the north is expanding. farming is on suffering and they are constructing the worlds largest damn in an attempt to divert water an control it. in addition, rivers have dried up to divert water to all the factories that produce consumer goods to the global market! did you know for example that 80% of shoes sold in the USA are manufactured in china? where do you think all the raw material comes from and how much water gets consumed along the way.

the world is drowned in water, but usable water is scarce. even in the nordics in the land of the lakes, about 2% of the water is consumable! regardless of how much it snows and rains there!

yes there is a difference in types of water, but things are always regional, in the nordics, you pay separetly for hot water and cold water and on top of that you pay for the wasted water! so if you consume 100l/month of cold water you pay for that and if you let it drain, then double the figure of what you pay! in our household we pay an average of 50$/month/person!

in most of the world there drinking water is separate of household water and then again aseparate thing from agricultural and industrial water. arabs and africans are the most experienced with that. in the nordics drinking and household water is the same thing. in africa its a different thing because there is "drinkable" water and water.
so when the drinkable water is used for growing roses, yes its out from somebody's mouth. whats wrong with water export within the water footprint is that communities are not aware of regulating it in such a maner that it would be a win-win case for both. right now its more of benefit for the privilidged and that picture is not that far from in comparison to gold and diamond mining in third world nations. it is very unfair to say that the one who is growing the roses would loose his business and income while at the same time there are twenty others deprived of many things because they can not have the basic needs to get on their feet to earn a social status and income.


yes you have boundary regions that yeld profit from exporting their products to neighboring nations. for example lebanon or egypt. but then again having the middle east dependent on the little agrigable resources in lebanon is quite extreme in proportion. a naive comparison is for example when british people insist on having oranges arround the year! they first wrong thing in this picture is that they are not respecting natures own cycle and perspective of having yeld oranges during summer periods. now it has to be available in the four seasons of the year. where is the joy or logic of having to have everything 24/7/12months a year? the world with its diverse geography will never be able to yeld a balance of availability of all natural products to all nations regardless of regions. that is as if to say that in 100years from now when the antartic has totally melted and becomes habitable and there is a population of 1billion people, rest of the world has to yeld oranges to suffice for everyone the freedom of selection and choice? common. do you eat steaks everyday?

irrigation costs is a subjective topic, we can not say that ites cheap or within reason. it is a cost that needs to be coped with. there is a limited amount of water available, its usage needs to be optimized with a balance and not optimized just so that one farmer would earn that extra buck while the fishermen suffer from all the chemicals that flow down to the sea. in the nordics 1kg of tomatoes during the winter costs over 7e!! why so? because its being intentionally grown in -20c winter temperatures? so should the consumption of tomatoe be the same size as during the summer? why not decrease consumption and import it from countries like spain and moroco and control the consumption with right price so that the exporting countries would retain a balance as well.

the problem with non-drinkable water is that it is one thing for it to be non-drinkable due to biological reasons but its a disastrous case when the reason is due to the lack of purifying the water from agricultural and industrial byproducts and wastes. the more waste is released, the less clean water we get in return form the ecosystem.

the north african rose industry example is a two edged case as is often with anything, if the scale tips down from one end, its goign to tip up from the other end, there is no such thing as a free lunch. yes, the africans are producing the roses with the benefit of the business profits, the downside then again is that the profit goes only to a few, the water is taken from wells and streams that villages usually used for consumption. the profit is not recycled in the local economy or the local community, instead it circulates abroad becuase the local community and financial industry can not further grow that earned wealth.

question is not about lowering how much water is used for what and controlling that, we are not at that point that. has there ever been a change that comes without taking a toll on someone? NEVER! has there ever been a change without it causing some to loose some of their income? NEVER! that part of what we are calling it in the first place, a CHANGE! no matter what we need to cope with, if we are not ready for CHANGE, we are bound to be amongst those who pay a higher price! change includes adaptation, if something goes, it is replaced by something else. that is known as dynamics. without dynamics, you would end up with a world frozen i time (which is very true regarding lebanon in many issues!).

the one big thing we can identify in this water footprint case is what was claimed long ago, that is that real wars are no longer fought with guns or bats, its fought in stockmarkets and financial industries and it has been so since the late 60s when the arabs began investing their oil earned money in global markets...
يا إلهي , هذه أكبر بوست رأيتها في حياتي
ill read it when im not busy :P
bash, i mostly agree with what you said. but my point of view is that the problem is due of the big guy. the big guy who abuses the poor, pays him poorly to maximize his profits while he doesnt really need to make that much profit if he was paying everyone equitably. it's not something related to water itself, it's something related to how the world is built, how trade is done, ...
if in countries that produce roses only SOME guys get benefit from it, it's because you have sucky governments (sometimes, supported by foreign countries), and these foreign countries abuse the situation to make the most out of it.
if you had both, no abuse from the big guy, and a just/democratic/bit-socialist government, more people would benefit, directly and indirectly, from the trade of, in this case, roses.

for example, take i don't know, any big company, like nike. they need rubber, they need fabric, they need leather, ... then they need someone to make the shoes, the clothes, ...
they pay poorly for the rubber, fabric, ... they pay double poorly for the people in china doing the clothes, ... which lets them increase their profit margin and you get the top shots of the company who earn unrealistic salaries. if things were more "just", give a good salary to the ceo, no need to be unrealistic, same to the other big guys, reduce your profit margin and use this extra money to pay correctly the people in malysia, or wherever they have their factories and from wherever they buy their rubber/fabric/... it would boost the economy of these countries, help them get access to water/food/medicine/education/... (if they have acceptable governments), and the company itself wouldn't get hurt much, the price of the product would still be the same (so the consumer would not be affected), ...

but it's not a problem isolated to water. the water problem you're talking about is 1 part of a bigger problem. it's not a problem of its own.
jadberro wrotewater footprint is the means of measuring the consumption of water in all means by an individual / company . it can be both good or bad , for example bad if someone leaves the tap open while brushing his teeth , or good if he finds a way for example to collect rain and redirect it to the water tanks that would decrease his footprint since he is adding water into his system from a regenerating source :D


environmentally friendly geeks
I thought it had something to do with Jesus walking on the water :D seriously.
rolf wrote
jadberro wrotewater footprint is the means of measuring the consumption of water in all means by an individual / company . it can be both good or bad , for example bad if someone leaves the tap open while brushing his teeth , or good if he finds a way for example to collect rain and redirect it to the water tanks that would decrease his footprint since he is adding water into his system from a regenerating source :D


environmentally friendly geeks
I thought it had something to do with Jesus walking on the water :D seriously.
three taboos,
- religion
- politics
- wealth

but i can see why you promptly related to Jesus, just makes me wonder what were you thinking right before you read "water footprint" on this forum :) you didnt happen to have just visited a church or just had a spiritual discussion with someone?
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