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That equates to around 4,000 liters per person per day. Freshwater withdrawals is a very broad category, it also includes water released to turn hydropower tur
by iudqnolq 3y ago
That equates to around 4,000 liters per person per day.
Freshwater withdrawals is a very broad category, it also includes water released to turn hydropower turbines. But it's also unfair to compare across countries without taking into account water sent between countries in the form of produce and products.
- Veserv 3y agoYou were quibbling about how 1,000 liters per day does not adequately account for all usage. Freshwater withdrawals is on average going to be a overestimate and the US is one of the worst outliers with significant agricultural exports which are one of the largest contributors to differential water withdrawals. Despite this, it would only be $2.00 per day for a fully desalinated water supply even if we safely overestimate usage. Despite it being 4x higher than the person you replied to said, that is still incredibly cheap.
- codedokode 3y ago4,000 liters per day is too much. It is 10 full bathtubs. Do Americans leave the tap open or do they take a bath 10 times per day?
- ateng 3y agoAgriculture and industry can use _a lot_ of water. Likely the 4000l figure includes that.
- Veserv 3y agoIt accounts for the water used in agriculture, industry, power generation, etc. Those uses completely dominate domestic water usage including for aesthetic purposes such as lawns and golf courses (e.g. around 80% of water usage in California is for agriculture and power generation if I remember correctly with only around 5-10% for all domestic usage). As you will note, the average German consumes 1,000 liters per day by the same metric which is 2.5 baths per day which is obviously unreasonable if we were only considering direct domestic water consumption. To be fair, the agriculture is being grown to feed people, so it is fair to include the consumed produce in each person’s water footprint. This is further exacerbated by growing animal feed for animals that are consumed which is even more “water inefficient”. The US is a major food exporter, so it is over-represented in these sorts of numbers, but it is a fair approximation to within a factor of maybe 2-3x of the embodied water consumption of the average American.
- iudqnolq 3y agoMaybe my comment wasn't clear. That figure isn't great - we just divided the total amount of freshwater diverted to some kind of use by the population. That even includes letting water flow past hydropower turbines. It's obviously too big. But not counting the water used to put food on your table is too small. So this establishes some bounds.