6 ms·

Average water use per person*day by country

18 points by derwiki 13y ago

maximumsteve 13y ago
The source urls are broken. Seeing Spain as sixth and Mexico as fifth leads me to believe that it is total water use over total population, as opposed to average water use per household. These are two very different things, and food exports must be taken into consideration if we are going to be using these values.
spurgu 13y ago
I would be very interested in seeing a breakdown of the amounts. You only drink maybe 1-2 liters per day. Showers and toilet flushes add to a fair amount but the majority has to be water for the plants and animals you eat.
- derwiki 13y ago
  At home, I think it's showers by far (something like 7 gal/minute, you do the math), ~50 gal for dishwasher or washing machine, then on down. And yea, most of the water that you "consume" is probably consumed so far upstream (hah!) that you don't even realize it. Edit: I looked up my original source and I had misquoted dishwasher, sorry about that. The source is: http://fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html http://fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html * Washing machines are 40-55 gal/load * Dishwashers are 15 gal/load * Running a faucet is 3 gal/minute
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> ~ 50 gal for dishwasher That one shocked me especially as someone who has never owned, and never plans to own a dishwasher. I probably use around 4 litres to fill the sink and wash the dishes, at most 3 times per day - which works out at around 3.1 US Gallons/2.6 imperial gallons.
    - derwiki 13y ago
      As I corrected, 15 gal/load for dishwasher. So, coupled with the fact that a running faucet is 3 gal/minute, a dishwasher is better if you leave the faucet running while hand washing dishes, and take longer than 5 minutes.
      - k-mcgrady 13y ago
        I didn't see the correction. I don't know many people who run the tap when washing the dishes. Generally I plug the sink and spend 1-2 minutes filling it with water. It still seems to work out less but I guess it depends on how ofter you fill the sink/run the dishwasher.
        VLM 13y ago
        I used to use a huge amount of water when handwashing by rinsing under flowing water. Soap tastes icky and some screw up your digestion. Its possible you're not rinsing under flowing water. Also consider the ratio of sink size to dishwasher size, which is a fad/style issue. My kitchen sink doing a realistic sinkful of dishes only holds perhaps 1/4 the dishes my washer holds. It seems difficult, although not impossible, to buy a non-energy star dishwasher which means less than 6 gallons per load. One point that everyone seems to miss is the amount of soap and biomatter being flushed thru the pipes is a constant, no matter if you handwash and use 20 gallons or use a machine and only use 5 gallons. So I donno about sewer system efficiency given an intake flow that might be 4 times more or less dilute. I can do one dishwasher full of dishes using about 6 gallons, or about 3 to 4 sinks full, each maybe 10 gallons, for a total around 30-40 gallons. I believe this estimate to be true... in the ancient years of hand washing and old fashioned tanks, I could use up all the hot water in a 30 gallon hot water heater after thanksgiving by the end of dish time. Now that I have the tankless that will never run out, even after a handwashing thanksgiving, ironically I also now have a dishwasher which means I use practically no hot water anyway. There are other benefits to the tankless of course.
        maxerickson 13y ago
  - JAFTEM 13y ago
    Does 'at home' include watering the lawn or garden? If the drought in California is a 'mega drought' like some news outlets are saying, I hear that cities could pass laws restricting residents from watering their lawns as it accounts for up to 50% of a household's water usage [0]. [0] http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20140125/megadrought-could-have-catastrophic-effects-on-california http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20140125/megadrought-c...
    - prawn 13y ago
      This has happened in Australia in the past, in capital cities. You can get reported for watering your garden on the wrong days.
- bbosh 13y ago
  I'm surprised the figures for the United States vs United Kingdom are are so far apart (550 vs 150). These leads me to think much of the usage is water lost during transmission, or used in farming/industry rather than in the home.
  - derwiki 13y ago
    Farming sounds very plausible: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/californias-drought-whos-really-using-all-the-water/ http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/californias-drought-whos-... and something I never thought about: ".. humans drink less than one gallon of water per day, but a cow can drink up to 23 gallons of water a day."
    - bluedino 13y ago
      Think about the sheer acreage in the USA compared to England and how much of the land is used for crops or livestock.
    - Hannan 13y ago
      >> ".. humans drink less than one gallon of water per day, but a cow can drink up to 23 gallons of water a day." They do weigh a bit more though. :) It probably ends up being ~2x-3x a human's water consumption by weight.
  - aestra 13y ago
    Rasing meat for human consumption requires a TON of water (and land)
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    It might also have something to do with climate. People in a warm southern US climate probably drink more water than people living in a more mild climate (UK).
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    Have a look at the center of the US on a satellite map and you'll see where most of our water is used.
0x0 13y ago
Shouldn't the title then be "average water use per person/day by country"?
derwiki 13y ago
This is also neat: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/change-the-course/water-footprint-calculator/ http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshw... It shows how your household compares to national averages in terms of water use, diet, energy, and shopping. I was a little surprised to read that the average person does 3 loads of laundry a week. I'm closer to every 3 weeks -- but I guess I have a pretty small household.
aestra 13y ago
Missing Canada. :(
ars 13y ago
Most water is used for farming (grain in particular), and it would be good if it was possible to adjust the numbers based on relative import/export of food. Countries without enough water import water in the form of grain, and vis versa for those blessed with plenty. So don't look at this graph and automatically think "The US should reduce water use". First you have to look at how much grain the US exports. Second you have to look at how the water is used. For example household water usage with a sewer system is a null usage. Reducing that does almost nothing - all the water used gets recycled downstream by the next city downriver. On the other hand septic systems waste water. So a county that (for household use) uses 1/4 of the water, but only uses it once is worse than a country that recycles that water 5 times on its way to the ocean. Yet they look much better on a per capita basis. So although this graph is very very interesting it doesn't give you actionable information.
- realrocker 13y ago
  I thought so too. US is world's largest exporter of grains. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/05/us-russia-agriculture-factbox-idUSPAT50124520080805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/05/us-russia-agricult...
- sentenza 13y ago
  So explain Spain. They have massive farming operations in a rather dry area and yet use significantly less water than the US. A significant portion of the vegetables and fruits in any grocery store here in Germany come from Spain.
  - sgk284 13y ago
    Every square meter of Spain could be farmland and the United States would still have 3.5x as much farmland (that is, Spain's total landarea is less than a third of the United State's cropland). As it stands, the United States has about an order of magnitude more cropland than Spain[1]. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=farmland+in+united+states+vs+spain http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=farmland+in+united+stat...
    - 13y ago
gatehouse 13y ago
Also consider that water is renewable. If you use less than the amount that gets replenished, you're fine. If you use more it will just get worse and worse.
ck2 13y ago
I wonder what percentage of that is from fracking.
- ars 13y ago
  A more important question is what percentage is used by recycling.

18 points by derwiki 13y ago

The source urls are broken. Seeing Spain as sixth and Mexico as fifth leads me to believe that it is total water use over total population, as opposed to average water use per household. These are two very different things, and food exports must be taken into consideration if we are going to be using these values.

spurgu 13y ago

I would be very interested in seeing a breakdown of the amounts. You only drink maybe 1-2 liters per day. Showers and toilet flushes add to a fair amount but the majority has to be water for the plants and animals you eat.

derwiki 13y ago
At home, I think it's showers by far (something like 7 gal/minute, you do the math), ~50 gal for dishwasher or washing machine, then on down. And yea, most of the water that you "consume" is probably consumed so far upstream (hah!) that you don't even realize it. Edit: I looked up my original source and I had misquoted dishwasher, sorry about that. The source is: http://fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html http://fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html * Washing machines are 40-55 gal/load * Dishwashers are 15 gal/load * Running a faucet is 3 gal/minute
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> ~ 50 gal for dishwasher That one shocked me especially as someone who has never owned, and never plans to own a dishwasher. I probably use around 4 litres to fill the sink and wash the dishes, at most 3 times per day - which works out at around 3.1 US Gallons/2.6 imperial gallons.
  - derwiki 13y ago
    As I corrected, 15 gal/load for dishwasher. So, coupled with the fact that a running faucet is 3 gal/minute, a dishwasher is better if you leave the faucet running while hand washing dishes, and take longer than 5 minutes.
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      I didn't see the correction. I don't know many people who run the tap when washing the dishes. Generally I plug the sink and spend 1-2 minutes filling it with water. It still seems to work out less but I guess it depends on how ofter you fill the sink/run the dishwasher.
      - VLM 13y ago
        I used to use a huge amount of water when handwashing by rinsing under flowing water. Soap tastes icky and some screw up your digestion. Its possible you're not rinsing under flowing water. Also consider the ratio of sink size to dishwasher size, which is a fad/style issue. My kitchen sink doing a realistic sinkful of dishes only holds perhaps 1/4 the dishes my washer holds. It seems difficult, although not impossible, to buy a non-energy star dishwasher which means less than 6 gallons per load. One point that everyone seems to miss is the amount of soap and biomatter being flushed thru the pipes is a constant, no matter if you handwash and use 20 gallons or use a machine and only use 5 gallons. So I donno about sewer system efficiency given an intake flow that might be 4 times more or less dilute. I can do one dishwasher full of dishes using about 6 gallons, or about 3 to 4 sinks full, each maybe 10 gallons, for a total around 30-40 gallons. I believe this estimate to be true... in the ancient years of hand washing and old fashioned tanks, I could use up all the hot water in a 30 gallon hot water heater after thanksgiving by the end of dish time. Now that I have the tankless that will never run out, even after a handwashing thanksgiving, ironically I also now have a dishwasher which means I use practically no hot water anyway. There are other benefits to the tankless of course.
        maxerickson 13y ago
- JAFTEM 13y ago
  Does 'at home' include watering the lawn or garden? If the drought in California is a 'mega drought' like some news outlets are saying, I hear that cities could pass laws restricting residents from watering their lawns as it accounts for up to 50% of a household's water usage [0]. [0] http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20140125/megadrought-could-have-catastrophic-effects-on-california http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20140125/megadrought-c...
  - prawn 13y ago
    This has happened in Australia in the past, in capital cities. You can get reported for watering your garden on the wrong days.
bbosh 13y ago
I'm surprised the figures for the United States vs United Kingdom are are so far apart (550 vs 150). These leads me to think much of the usage is water lost during transmission, or used in farming/industry rather than in the home.
- derwiki 13y ago
  Farming sounds very plausible: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/californias-drought-whos-really-using-all-the-water/ http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/californias-drought-whos-... and something I never thought about: ".. humans drink less than one gallon of water per day, but a cow can drink up to 23 gallons of water a day."
  - bluedino 13y ago
    Think about the sheer acreage in the USA compared to England and how much of the land is used for crops or livestock.
  - Hannan 13y ago
    >> ".. humans drink less than one gallon of water per day, but a cow can drink up to 23 gallons of water a day." They do weigh a bit more though. :) It probably ends up being ~2x-3x a human's water consumption by weight.
- aestra 13y ago
  Rasing meat for human consumption requires a TON of water (and land)
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  It might also have something to do with climate. People in a warm southern US climate probably drink more water than people living in a more mild climate (UK).
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  Have a look at the center of the US on a satellite map and you'll see where most of our water is used.

0x0 13y ago

Shouldn't the title then be "average water use per person/day by country"?

derwiki 13y ago

This is also neat: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/change-the-course/water-footprint-calculator/ http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshw... It shows how your household compares to national averages in terms of water use, diet, energy, and shopping. I was a little surprised to read that the average person does 3 loads of laundry a week. I'm closer to every 3 weeks -- but I guess I have a pretty small household.

aestra 13y ago

Missing Canada. :(

ars 13y ago

Most water is used for farming (grain in particular), and it would be good if it was possible to adjust the numbers based on relative import/export of food. Countries without enough water import water in the form of grain, and vis versa for those blessed with plenty. So don't look at this graph and automatically think "The US should reduce water use". First you have to look at how much grain the US exports. Second you have to look at how the water is used. For example household water usage with a sewer system is a null usage. Reducing that does almost nothing - all the water used gets recycled downstream by the next city downriver. On the other hand septic systems waste water. So a county that (for household use) uses 1/4 of the water, but only uses it once is worse than a country that recycles that water 5 times on its way to the ocean. Yet they look much better on a per capita basis. So although this graph is very very interesting it doesn't give you actionable information.

realrocker 13y ago
I thought so too. US is world's largest exporter of grains. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/05/us-russia-agriculture-factbox-idUSPAT50124520080805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/05/us-russia-agricult...
sentenza 13y ago
So explain Spain. They have massive farming operations in a rather dry area and yet use significantly less water than the US. A significant portion of the vegetables and fruits in any grocery store here in Germany come from Spain.
- sgk284 13y ago
  Every square meter of Spain could be farmland and the United States would still have 3.5x as much farmland (that is, Spain's total landarea is less than a third of the United State's cropland). As it stands, the United States has about an order of magnitude more cropland than Spain[1]. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=farmland+in+united+states+vs+spain http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=farmland+in+united+stat...
  - 13y ago

gatehouse 13y ago

Also consider that water is renewable. If you use less than the amount that gets replenished, you're fine. If you use more it will just get worse and worse.

ck2 13y ago

I wonder what percentage of that is from fracking.

ars 13y ago
A more important question is what percentage is used by recycling.