Hidden Cost of Virtual Water

The concept of the water footprint has been developed to create an indicator of water use in relation to the consumption by people. The water footprint of a country is defined as the volume of water needed to produce the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of the country. Water footprint is basically the volume of water used. It can be defined as the 'volume of fresh water appropriated to produce the product, considering the volumes of water consumed and polluted in the different steps of the supply chain.

However, much more water is used indirectly in the process of producing commodities which includes water consumption as well as pollution throughout the supply chain to the end-users. The amount of water used in producing commodities during their entire life cycle is called the virtual water contained within them.

?There are three types of water footprints viz. Green, Blue, and Grey.

Green water footprint?is water from precipitation that is stored in the root zone of soil and evaporated, transpired or incorporated by plants. It is applicable for agriculture, horticulture, and forestry products.

Blue water footprint?is surface or ground water resources either evaporated or incorporated into a product or taken from one water resource and returned to another. Water consumption by irrigated agriculture, industries and domestic sectors have blue water footprint.

Grey water footprint?is the amount of fresh water required to assimilate to reach certain water quality standards. It includes the point source pollution discharge to fresh water or indirect pollution through leaching from soil or other sources.

A clear example of virtual water use can be seen in farming and food production, where a lot of virtual water is used to get your food from the field to your plate. A good amount of this water comes from underground sources. Throughout this process, plants get water from rain and hoses, thirsty animals drink, different types of food gets prepared, packed, and sent to stores. At each step, water is needed — oftentimes, in substantial quantities. This hidden water contributes significantly to the items’ water footprint.

?We must check virtual water exported as Good and Services are exported. E.g. when we export 1 ton of wheat, we save 1,654,000 L of real indigenous water of the importing country.

The changing food habits of the people and growing inclination towards meat, dairy products and processed food is contributing significantly to the increase in average of consumption of fat and sugar, and this is increasing its virtual water footprint.

Example 1 Kg of potato uses 290 L of water, same 1 Kg of Chicken would be 4330 L, 1 Kg eggs is 7,531 L, and 1 Kg Sheep is 10400 L of water. Looks like Vegetarians are saving the water of the planet. One of the highest is of Chocolates 1 Kg consumes 17000 L of water.

Meat products, particularly beef, have higher water use of 8500 L/Kg and per calorie than grains. This is because meat virtual water accounts for water consumed to produce all the livestock feed required for the animal throughout its lifetime, and calorie conversion by animals from plant has a very low efficiency (e.g. 10 to 40 calories of plant need for 1 calorie of beef meat (Eshel et?al., 2014). Also processing of agricultural items increases the virtual water cost.

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Understanding virtual water allows us to compare the impact of water use across various sectors and to assess how much water is used to produce an item relative to the value the product adds.

·???????? Vehicles (54900 – 87740 L of water to produce one car)

·???????? Leather (17000 L of water to produce 1 Kg of leather product)

·???????? Smartphones (12760 L of water to produce one phone)

·???????? Jeans (11464 L?of water to produce one pair of jeans)

·???????? Bed Linens (10304 L?of water to produce one bed sheet)

·???????? Paper Products (12 L of water to produce one sheet of paper)

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It will not be possible to price the products by including the cost of water, as it may lead them to be less affordable to most of the population. But it will be wiser to consider this virtual water cost while production, trade, pricing, and life cycle of any product, to conserve and use efficiently the limited source of water. And practice frugality and responsibility in use of consumables as well as food intake to avoid depleting the precious water resource.

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“When the well is dry, we learn the value of water” (Benjamin Franklin)