Friday, June 1, 2018

How thirsty is your food?

My husband Omar Piamonte Jayag, an agricultural and water resources engineer, took a break from preparing his 3-hour presentation for an environmental resources management seminar to be attended by over 200 participants and asked me this question, “how much water do you use everyday?” It seemed to be an easy question to answer. I estimated about 3 buckets of water for shower in the morning and wash up in the evening, 2 liters to drink including juice, tea or coffee, maybe another bucket or two for all the dirty jobs in the toilet, a few liters for cooking meals, another couple of buckets for washing the clothes and dishes. Basically, I mentioned the obvious water necessities which literally require me to use water directly. However, I cannot be more wrong.


Omar then introduced to me the concept of water footprint. Unfortunately, despite my desire to live an environment conscious lifestyle, it is rather a shame that I have heard of this for the first time. Water footprint covers not only the water we use directly everyday but also those that were used in making our food or the products we use. For example, a slice of bread requires 10 gallons of water; that is the total amount of water needed for growing the wheat and sugarcane, raising chicken for the eggs, manufacturing the flour and sugar up to the baking process of the bread. That is a lot of water for a single slice of bread! In the Philippines, every person uses an average of 3,800 liters of water daily.

There are several data available online that shows how much water is needed in producing our food and basic necessities such as these infographics. Aside from our own, we also have to consider the water footprints of various sectors such as the industrial, medical, tourism, education among others to deepen our appreciation of how reliant we are to water.

Photo from www.wwfindia.org
 
Photo from www.1millionwomen.com.au
 
Photo from www.circleofblue.org
Photo from https://foodtechconnect.com
Unfortunately, according to the World Water Assessment Programme 97.5% of the earth’s water are salty and only 2.5% are fresh water. Of these 2.5% fresh water, 68.1% are in glacial form, 30.1% are ground water and only 1.2% are surface water where most of the water we use are sourced. What is more disheartening is that according to Omar not all of the available 1.2% surface water are safe to use at present because several rivers and lakes are already gravely polluted.

We are currently facing a water crisis with billions of people not having access to safe drinking water and a quarter of the world’s population face water shortages. In the Philippines despite the existence of several rivers, lakes and other surface water sources, majority of the population still face water shortages with several barangays frequently experiencing water supply interruptions during the day. Families are left to make do with what little water they can gather early in the morning with containers and wait until evening when water supply can run through their faucets again.

There is an urgent need to conserve water. Whilst experts in the field such as my husband are working hard to provide people with sufficient and safe water supply, we have a crucial role to play in water conservation. We need to be mindful of our lifestyle and reduce our water footprint because the agriculture sector uses up to 70% of the global water supply. Our food are extremely thirsty and we need to ensure they get enough water otherwise we will not only get thirsty ourselves, we will also run out of food to eat. Indeed, water is the oil of the 21st century.

Photo from www.seametrics.com

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