What Is Water Footprint? A Guide to Understanding Your Impact

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What is a Water Footprint?

Picture this: you just washed your hands after eating a juicy beef burger, and while doing so, you received a phone call and left the tap open for 5 minutes. Can you guess what your water footprint would be in this story? The answer is 30 litres of water for the tap (6 litres per minute)... and 2,500 litres of water for the beef burger (source: World Economic Forum). Sure, you might have expected water consumption from an open tap, but what about the beef burger?

We consume an average of 5,000 litres of water every day, and 90% of our water consumption is invisible to us. Indeed, 300 litres come from washing dishes, showers, laundry, or flushing toilets. But the remaining 4,700 litres are 'virtual water'—used to produce goods, especially food.

Some Water Footprint Examples

Source: UNESCO WWAP

Source: Water Footprint Network

And if you are more a video person, we strongly recommend this video from the UNESCO:

Here are tips to decrease your water footprint:

If you want to save water, drink water! It takes more than 150 liters of water to produce a glass of soda, apple juice, or a glass of milk.

Prefer plant-based meals over meat. Each time you eat a falafel sandwich instead of a beef burger, you save around 2,000 liters of water.

Prefer tea over coffee: the amount of water needed to produce a cup of tea is only 30L. Meanwhile, it takes 140L for a cup of coffee. So, each time you choose tea over coffee, you save 110L of water!

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