Water Footprint Analysis and Reflection
Objectives
-To record, calculate, and understand personal water consumption.
-To place this usage in the larger environmental and societal context.
-To understand ways in which water can be consumed including embedded in products, services, and energy. (i.e. virtual water)
-To think critically about water sustainability and conservation at different scales.
Instructions
Navigate to the following water use calculator and calculate your footprint – https://www.watercalculator.org/.
Provide a detailed written analysis and reflection of your water footprint (~750 words). You may consider such questions as below to help guide you as you critically analyze and reflect on your water usage, but are not limited to or required to answer those. Note there are many useful links beyond the calculator at the site linked that will help inform your analysis. For example:
Potential Guiding Questions:
What variable is my water footprint most sensitive to?
Where are the most effective areas for change?
What are the strengths or shortcomings of the calculator?
How do my results compare between different scenarios, say business as usual vs. water conservation?
How does my footprint compare to others’ in the United States, other countries?
How does my water usage compare to minimum daily water requirement suggestions from global health organizations?
In what areas could I conserve, in what areas is that not possible?
How does my usage break down between virtual, indoor, and outdoor?
How can I be more sustainably in my water usage? Think across all 3 pillars/spheres of sustainability.
and many others….
What to Turn In
Please submit your assignment via D2L as a Word Document file and the footprint output(s) pasted into your document (as a image screen capture, or recreate the graph). Note similar to your previous assignment I am looking for an organized narrative analysis and reflection, not a list of answered guiding questions.
