Water Footprints

Water is an essential and irreplaceable part of life. Even if life on Earth could be mysteriously sustained without water, many of our day to day activities would be disrupted. Water is used to produce meat and crops which we then consume, for bathing ourselves and cleaning objects, in religious rituals, for transportation, to produce industrial goods, and the list continues. In short, without water, there would be no hamburgers, no iPhones, no cars, no tea or coffee, etc...

Source: National Geographic's Water FootPrint Calculator

Source: Water Footprint Network

The amount of water an individual consumes per day/week/year is actually a measurement that can be calculated. The result is called a water footprint. Both National Water Footprint Network and National Geographic have tools that can calculate your water footprint. Each tool uses slightly different information to provide their answers so it's worth visiting both.

Possible Failures of the Data

I am not sure how accurate my results are as I live on a college campus. I personally do not wash my own dishes but a worker for the caf must use water to wash the dishes I used. I don't choose what food is purchased/ cooked but I do have some choices in meals once I enter the caf. I also do not water the lawn but it is possible that Dickinson College does.  However, once could argue that the school would be doing this services for another student even if I never matriculated.

 Another discrepancy I found was expenditure on material goods. I tend to be a careful shopper and buy either second hand or with sales/ coupons so I end up spending less per item. It is possible in the long run that I am a bigger consumer than the average American but my water scores dropped very low when I input my personal expenditure in dollars. I used the year 2014 for my calculation but in terms of travel it is a bit of an odd year for me: as much as I enjoy it I don't typically fly from New York To Istanbul to Casablanca (roundtrip), New York to London to Madrid (roundtrip), from Casablanca to Tunis (roundtrip), from Ouarzazate to Casablanca,  and Philadelphia to Miami to Lima (roundtrip). Nor do I typically take the ferry to and from Spain, or the bus/train around more or less all of Morocco.  I do however, typically do a lot of driving for work during the summer months as I photograph at different universities/ races.  I also wash my hands a lot at my other part time job (hosting/bussing tables at a restaurant) and I included this in my calculations because I work on average four nights a week.

Personal Consumption compared to Others

Using google's converter tool, I converted 1,529 gallons of water per day to 558,085 gallons per year to approximately 2113 cubic meters per year. This is over twice the amount of water calculated by the other tool (980 cubic meters per year). However, according to National Geographic's Measures, I am well below U.S. average  in my personal water consumption.

According to the National Water Footprint Network, the water footprint per capita in Iran is 

1866 cubic meters per year. This is higher than the global average (1385 cubic meters per year). My score on the National Water Footprint Network's calculator was approximately half of the consumption in Iran. According to National Geographic's measures I consume 247 cubic meters per year more than the average Iranian. Averaging my two scores out gives a consumption of 1,546 cubic meters per year which while higher than the global average is still below the Iranian levels of consumption.

Turkey's water footprint per capita is 1,642 cubic meters per year, according to the National Water Footprint Network. Again, my score with the same calculator falls well below this average at 980 cubic meters. My score with National Geographic is 471 cubic meters more per year than the average Turk. Averaging my two water scores places me 96 cubic meters per year under the Turkish average. 

Source: The Economist

There was no data provided for Iraq.

Reflections

In the US though water is considered an abundant resource, there is a lot of emphasize on sustainability and conservation in modern US culture. Dickinson College places a water bottle tax to encourage reusable water bottles. The school caf has a big focus on composting and there are no trash cans in site.Everything is sorted by school workers into appropriate bins. I am not sure if there is this same emphasize in my region of study. Both Iran and Turkey have a fair amount of fresh water compared to the rest of the region but logically water conservation is in everybody's best interest.