World Water Day
2021 (in the rear-view mirror): Valuing Water.
World Water Day (March 22, 2021) is past (www.WorldWaterDay.org)… By now
you should have taken the Water
Day Quiz at SustainZine.
It’s been about 10 years since I developed such a quiz. I had to work to
improve and update the original quiz… It is still tricky to get good answers to
some of these water-critical issues. Often the water usage is available to the
homeowner, but gets confusing as the data is aggregated for the state and for
the nation. The more abstract uses of water, like virtual water, are erratic
and imprecise. Important concepts, but the answers are fuzzy.
Here is my Water
Day Quiz for 2021; if you haven’t already done it, please complete before
going further. It’s important to know what you know, and what you don’t know
related to water systems. It is surprisingly hard to develop this quiz because
the numbers are all over the map. I have 15 multiple guess questions. Answer
them all before starting to Google the answers. For which questions do you have
a high confidence in your original answer? I’m trying to use current stats;
different sources give different estimates, sometimes old news is no longer
accurate (maybe it never was accurate). I generally used US and US units of
measure unless specifically indicated otherwise. Answers, scoring and sources are
presented in the next sections.
Thanks for playing the game. It’s a
serious game though, because lives and livelihoods now and into the future
depend on how we sustainably address water issues.
Water Facts: The Water
Resources of Earth
Over 70% of our Earth’s
surface is covered by water (we should really call our planet “Ocean”
instead of “Earth”). Although water is seemingly abundant, the real
issue is the amount of fresh water available.
- 97.5%
of all water on Earth is salt water, leaving only 2.5% as fresh
water - Nearly
70% of that fresh water is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica
and Greenland; most of the remainder is present as soil moisture, or
lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater not accessible to human
use. - <
1% of the world’s fresh water (~0.007% of all water on earth) is
accessible for direct human uses. This is the water found in lakes,
rivers, reservoirs, and those underground sources that are shallow enough
to be tapped at an affordable cost. Only this amount is regularly renewed
by rain/snowfall, and is therefore available on a sustainable basis. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_distribution_on_Earth
With water everywhere (70% of the earth’s surface), it is
hard to image people without fresh drinking water and clean sanitation, but the
numbers are pretty ugly. About 780M people do not have running water according
to the World Health Organization (www.WHO.INT); but you might see 2.1B (about
25% of the world’s population) who don’t have clean running water at home. And
probably about 2B do not have safe septic/sewer
(https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sanitation) Who estimates
that 4.5B (almost 60%) of the world’s population do not have safe toilets at
home. (Some people might argue, that if
you don’t have clean septic, you really don’t have clean water, because it gets
contaminated in normal household operations.)
The health implications of this are massive. Direct
ailments, hospitalizations and deaths are staggering. Poor water and sanitation
contribute to diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A,
typhoid and polio. A WHO study in 2012
estimated that for “every US$ 1.00 invested in sanitation, there was a return
of US$ 5.50 in lower health costs, more productivity, and fewer premature
deaths.”
Probably 50% of the US fresh water is
polluted… as in no swimming, and you should not eat the fish (if any). If it is
that bad in the US, imagine how horrible it is in some of the developing
countries. In short, we need to stop treating water like dirt! And definitely stop
use rivers and streams as a sewer dump.
How
much water do you use per day?
Indirectly
and directly, the average person in the US uses more than 1,500 to 2,000
gallons of water per day. This varies a lot by season and by area. Let’s start
with the more direct usages of water. The EPA provides average usage at home:
·
300 gallons per household directly.
(roughly 120 gals per person)
·
210 gallons (70%) of that water used in
households is indoors, mostly in the bathroom (toilets, showers, faucets)
·
12%-13% of indoor water used is wasted from
leaks!
·
Much of the outdoor water is wasted as
well.
Use EPA resources here:
https://www.epa.gov/watersense/how-we-use-water.
Ensia provides a great visualization including state-by-state differences: https://ensia.com/articles/water-use/
Various sources give higher averages. Compute your own water footprint based on
your lifestyle here: https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/the-water-footprint-of-energy/
How
many gallons of water does it take to…?
Water to power a 60-Watt light bulb?
It takes a lot of water to generate electricity using coal, natural gas or
nuclear power. Nuclear requires the most water to generate electricity.
Estimates are that it takes between 3,000 and 6,000 gallons of water to produce
electricity for a 60-watt light bulb, 12 hours per day, for a year! Heating
water (NatGas, Coal, Nuclear) for steam turbine power generation uses lots of
water; they generally take water out of the river and return most of it further
downstream after partial cooling (maybe 10% evaporates, however). If the water
source dries up (or freezes) the power plant may need to be idled. Hydro
electric from dams simply redirects the downstream flow of the water, so the
water impact is in the change in water flows (when power is needed) and evaporation
of the increased surface area in a dam.
Wind power and photovoltaic solar power do
not use any water in operations to produce electricity. The power mix of the
local utility determines the savings of water and CO2 each year from a switch
to solar power on the home or business.
Buying an electric vehicle (EV) may not be
such a great savings if charged from the local power utility that has a heavy
footprint. Installing solar and charging mainly from direct sun power is much
better.
But what about gasoline (before adding in
a 10% ethanol mix)?
It takes lots and lots of water to produce
oil. The drilling process, conventional or fracking, takes huge amounts of
water, and it contaminates water. Fracking for oil (and NatGas) can produce
about 0.5 barrels of waste water for every barrel of oil (Duke University
citing a 2015 fracking study: https://today.duke.edu/2015/09/frackfoot).
But then the crude has to be refined, which takes energy and water. There is
less processing needed for jet fuel and diesel, but gasoline requires about 0.7
gallons of water per gallon of fuel.
Ethanol requires a surprising amount of
water during procession. Ethanol from corn, for example, requires about 10
gallons of water for every gallon produced; and that’s not counting the water
required to grow the corn, if corn is the ethanol feedstock. It takes a
whopping 20-30 gallons of water to make the corn needed for 1 gallon of
ethanol. (It takes about 1.25 gallons of ethanol, however, to make the equivalent
power as 1 gallon of gasoline.)
Water to create a pound of food?
(See Water Calculator on this.).
It takes a lot of water to grow crops, and a massive amount to produce animals
for food. This has been referred to as virtual water. It takes 37 gallons of
water for a cup of coffee counting everything from grow coffee beans, to
cleaning them, and to brewing the coffee.
To grow a pound of potatoes requires only 31 gallons; beans, 43; and
corn, 109. BUT it requires a huge amount of water to produce animal products,
since you have to grow the corn or hay first in order to feed it to animals. It
requires 371 gallons to produce a pound of cheese; eggs, 400 (8 x 2oz);
chicken, 469; pork, 756; and 1,857 gallons of water to produce a single pound
of beef. Wow! Not only is it healthier for you to eat lower on the food chain,
but it would save massive amounts of water (and energy).
Oh, and it requires a huge amount of water
to produce clothes too — to grow the cotton, but the water intensive
processing required to make cloth and ultimately clothes. It takes 2,000+
gallons of water to produce one pair of blue jeans! Countries that are net importers of foods,
clothes and other finished products are, essentially, also importing water
inherent in them. (See https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/the-hidden-water-in-everyday-products/)
The Nexus of Water and Energy.
As you can see, power generation and food production require large amounts of
water. Similarly, water requires energy in many ways. Hydroelectric generation
from water in dams is a direct relationship. Other requirements of energy are
simply to get water from wherever it is, to wherever it is needed. Energy is
needed to purify water. It takes about 10% of the energy produced in the US to move
water around and process it.
With only about 1% of the world’s water as
available fresh water, an obvious way to get fresh water is desalination of salt
water. Unfortunately, desalinization is rather expensive. It is much easier and
cheaper to pump water from the mainland to islands (St. Petersburg and Key
West).
to make plastics. Lots of energy, and lots of water, to mine, refine,
manufacture and ship everything. Recyclings of plastics, paper and metals still
takes water and energy, but far less than the resources used than the original
products that started in the mines.
Oh… If you want to know your water footprint you can go
here: http://waterfootprint.org/en/resources/interactive-tools/personal-water-footprint-calculator/
The last time I ran the calculator it estimates that I
consume about 2,100 cubic meters of water per year. If my math is right, that is about 1,800
gallons per day! The US average is more than 1,000.
So What Can I Do Right Now?
Measure and monitor. You need to measure
and monitor regularly to have a consistent impact on your usage, and your improved
savings from each initiative.
Savings. Reduce what you
use saves you money, saves resources, and saves water. Directly, you can
usually use 20 to 25% less water in homes. Each state and most counties will
offer water savings tips that are relevant to the locale; in Volusia County
Florida here are 25 tips. https://www.volusia.org/services/growth-and-resource-management/environmental-management/natural-resources/water-conservation/25-ways-to-save-water.stml
The gallon that is never saved, and never
used, is called a NegaGallon.
As you have seen, most of the water you
used is indirectly, so reducing travel and using less electricity are important
places to start.
Telework. Some of us are
getting tired of Zoom meetings, but the savings are massive from telework (and
other types of avoided travel). The NegaGallon of gasoline is petrol that is never
used and therefore never drilled, refined, shipped, and burned in your car.
Electricity
.
Do an energy audit if you haven’t already done so; it’s free from your local power
utility. Energy-ize your home and businesses. NegaWatt. That’s the kilowatt of
power that you never used: it never had to be fracked, piped to a refinery,
shipped to the power plant, burned to produce power. No trees were killed, no
greenhouse gasses produced.
So
What?
So energy and water are very closely
interconnected. It’s important to conserving water and to use it wisely.
Unfortunately, as with most things sustainability-related, the people who deal
with energy, don’t generally deal with water management, and vice versa.
Sustainability requires an integrated approach to most things, especially water
and energy.
Imagine what happens if the rest of the
world consumed resources as we do. The Water Use Around the Word InfoGraphic shows that US water use is
156 per person per day, but we know that the real number is 10 times that, all
things considered. And our usage is twice that of Europe (France) and 4x India.
What happens if they start to consume at the same rate as we? Plus, what
happens as we move toward 10B world population?
Expect that water and water management
will become far more important in the future. Probably as important as oil is
currently. You should see more disputes over water by states and countries. This
topic is, accurately, called Water Wars.
FIND OUT MORE:
·
Use
EPA starting here: https://www.epa.gov/watersense/how-we-use-water.
Ensia provides a great visualization including state-by-state differences: https://ensia.com/articles/water-use/
·
World Water Day 2021 website: https://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday2021/
·
UN World Water Development Report 2021: www.unwater.org/publication_categories/world-water-development-report
·
UN-Water SDG
6 Data Portal: www.sdg6data.org
INTERSTING LINKS:
·
WaterFootprint
Calculator: https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/the-water-footprint-of-energy/
·
www.WaterMatters.org (Great, including Florida specific info.)
·
http://www.worldwaterday.org/
·
www.savewaterfl.com (For details & water-saving tips.)
·
Bottled Water and Energy:
A Fact Sheet http://www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/bottled_water/bottled_water_and_energy.html
(old source)
·
EPA on Water http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/waterenergy.html
·
Save Water Save Energy
brochure: http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/docs/drops-to-watts508.pdf
(including facts).
·
Couple cool Energy-Water
Nexus sites: http://www.eeweek.org/water_and_energy_wise/connection
and
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/water/enviro.notes/enviro.notes.water-energy.pdf
·
Virtual Water: https://mywaterearth.com/what-is-virtual-water/
Tips
and easy means to save water.
• FIRST. Measure
and monitor. Your pump should not be coming on when no activity is happening;
your meter should not be moving when all water is turned off. Most utilities
charge more as you consume (waste?) higher volumes of water.
• In your house
check for leaks from faucets and pipes; even the smallest drip
can waste as much as 75 liters (20 gals) a day.
In the
bathroom:
• Flush less — remember the toilet is not an ashtray or
wastebasket.
• While brushing
teeth, shaving, etc., turn off the water.
• When cold water
will do, avoid using hot water.
• Take shorter
showers — 5 minutes or less.
• In the shower,
wet yourself down, turn the water off, lather up, then turn the water on to
rinse off soap.
In the
kitchen:
• Operate the dishwasher only when you have a full load.
• Scrape, don’t
rinse, your dishes before loading in the dishwasher. Run when full.
• When purchasing
a dishwasher, consider a water-efficient model.
• Thaw frozen
food in the refrigerator or microwave, not under running water.
• Store drinking
water in the refrigerator instead of letting the tap run while you wait for
cool water to flow.
• When washing
dishes by hand, fill one sink or basin with soapy water and fill the rinsing
sink to one-third or one-half full
— avoid letting the water run continuously in the rinsing sink.
In the
laundry:
• For washers with variable settings for water volume, select the minimum
amount required per load.
• If load size
cannot be set, operate the washer with full loads only.
• Use the
shortest wash cycle for lightly soiled loads; normal and permanent press wash
cycles use more water.
• Check hoses
regularly for leaks.
• Pre-treat
stains to avoid rewashing.
In the
Yard:
• Most sprinkler systems waste a lot of
water. Frequently, they waste more than they (should) use. Install rain
sensors. Carefully monitor the coverage. Change level and frequency based on
season.
• Try to switch
to reclaimed water; it doesn’t need to be processed as much as potable city
water. Plus, many cities charge for the water you use assuming that all of it
also goes into the sewer system (separate, but equal, sewer water charges).
• Plant local
friendly (Florida friendly) and low care landscapes.
The
World Health Organization (Who.INT) offers these key water facts:
- In 2017, 71% of the global
population (5.3 billion people) used a safely managed drinking-water
service – that is, one located on premises, available when needed, and
free from contamination. - 90% of the global population
(6.8 billion people) used at least a basic service. A basic service is an
improved drinking-water source within a round trip of 30 minutes to
collect water. - 785 million people lack even a
basic drinking-water service, including 144 million people who are
dependent on surface water. - Globally, at least 2 billion
people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. - Contaminated water can transmit
diseases such diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio.
Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause 485 000 diarrhoeal
deaths each year. - By 2025, half of the world’s
population will be living in water-stressed areas. - In least developed countries,
22% of health care facilities have no water service, 21% no sanitation
service, and 22% no waste management service.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water
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