Showing posts with label country. Show all posts
Showing posts with label country. Show all posts

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Country Water Footprint

Source: http://everylittledrop.com.au/our-global-water-footprint
The water footprint of a nation refers to the total amount of water that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of the nation. The total water footprint of a country includes two components: the part of the footprint that falls inside the country (internal water footprint) and the part of the footprint that presses on other countries in the world (external water footprint).
The following table compares the national water footprints of various countries:
Country
Average water footprint
m3 / capita / year
Part of footprint falling outside 
of the country
USA248319%
Greece238935%
Spain232536%
France187537%
Australia139318%
Brazil13818%
UK124570%
GLOBAL AVERAGE1243-
Japan115364%
India9802%
South Africa93122%
Bangladesh8963%
Haiti8481%
China7027%
Ethiopia6751%

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Water Extracted For Agriculture

A most common statement is that agriculture uses the largest amount of water when our world is looked at as a whole: 70% of our water usage is for agriculture, 22% for our industries and a meager 8% in people's homes and for their personal use.
The 70-22-8 Segmentation does not apply to any country
Source - RBC Wealth Management 
Water extracted for agricultural use is different in different countries. 
The richest nations use the most water for their industrial goods with agriculture usage being only about 50% of their industrial usage.
In contrast, low-income and middle-income nations spend over 800 times more water on agriculture than they do on industry. These lower income countries spend as much as 82% of their water supplies on agriculture.
Source - www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/globalmaps/05_AGW_PCT_TW.pdf
Countries have their own individual ratios between the water they use for agriculture and the water they use in industry.
As shown in the chart, agricultural water use can range from a low of <25% to a high that is >90%.
And, the lower-income countries generally use a greater percentage of water  for agricultural uses.
Rain-Fed Agriculture
Irrigation fed land
Source - fao.org
The water that is withdrawn by nations for agriculture is always supplemented by rainfall.
In fact, agriculture that depends solely and mostly on rain represents about 80% of the total area under cultivation - This crop land produces about 60% of global food.
Also, developing countries have the largest share of cropland that requires irrigation i.e. land on which rain-fed agriculture is not suitable.
Southwestern US, southwestern Australia