WATER FOOTPRINT

JINCE MATHEW
150950004
MTECH ENVIRONMENTAL ENGG.

INTRODUCTION
Water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume
of fresh water that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the
individual or community or produced by the business .
A water footprint is basically the total amount of water a country or a nation or a
particular area or a particular human being uses.
Water use is measured in water volume consumed (evaporated) and/or polluted per
unit of time.
Your water footprint is the amount of water you use in and around your home, school or
office throughout the day directly or indirectly(virtual water).
You may not drink, feel or see this virtual water, but it makes up the majority of your
water footprint.
The water footprint of a product is the volume of freshwater used to produce the
product, measured over the full supply chain.
water footprint concept by Hoekstra in 2002 .

WATER FOOTPRINT OF THE

PRODUCTS

The water footprint of a product - amount of water consumed and polluted in all
processing stage of its production.

PHASES IN WATER FOOTPRINT

ASSESSMENT

FIG.1 Four distinct phases in water footprint assessment

COMPONENTS OF WATER
FOOTPRINT

 It shows that the non-consumptive

part of water withdrawals (the
return flow) is not part of the water
footprint. the water footprint
includes green and grey water and
the indirect water-use component.

Fig.2 Schematic representation of the components of a water footprint

Figure 3 shows a simplified example of the supply chain of an animal product.

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RELATION BETWEEN DIFFERENT

SORTS OF WATER FOOTPRINTS

Blue Water Footprint: Refers to the volume of surface water and ground water consumed (i.e. evaporated or incorporated into the
product) during production processes.
consumptive water use refers to one of the following four cases:
1) Water evaporates.
2) Water is incorporated into the product.
3) Water does not return to the same catchment area-it is returned to another catchment area or the sea.
4) Water does not return in the same period-it is withdrawn in a scarce period and returned in a wet period.

The blue water footprint in a process step is calculated as:

WFproc,blue= BlueWaterEvaporation + BlueWaterIncorporation + LostReturnflow

[volume/time]

Green Water Footprint: Refers to the volume of rainwater consumed (i.e. evaporated or incorporated into the product) by the
product.

It refers to the precipitation on land that does not run off or recharge the groundwater but is stored in the soil
or temporarily stays on top of the soil or vegetation.
The green water footprint in a process step is equal to:
WFproc,green = GreenWaterEvaporation + GreenWaterIncorporation [volume/time]

Grey Water Footprint: Refers to the amount of freshwater required to mix pollutants and
maintain water quality according to agreed water quality standards.

It is calculated by dividing the pollutant load (L, in mass/time) by the difference between the
ambient water quality standard for that pollutant (the maximum acceptable concentration cmax,
in mass/volume) and its natural concentration in the receiving water body (cnat, in
mass/volume).

Calculation of the water footprint of growing a crop or tree.

The total water footprint of the process of growing crops or trees (WFproc) is the sum of the
green, blue and grey components:
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Ways to reduce water footprint

reduce your direct water footprint by:
installing water saving toilets;
applying a water-saving showerhead;
turning off the tap while brushing your teeth;
using less water in the garden; and
by not disposing medicines, paints or other pollutants
through the sink.

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CASE STUDIES

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Calculation of water footprint of the iron and steel industry: a case

study in Eastern China
China is the largest producer of iron and steel in the world.
In this study, we propose the use of water footprint (fresh water consumption (FWC) per
tonne of steel or water consumption (WC) per tonne of steel) for the iron and steel industry.
develop a water footprint calculation model that includes direct and virtual water footprints. A
system boundary analysis method is proposed to develop a common and feasible industrial
water footprint assessment methodology.
FWC per tonne of steel denotes the fresh water used in the production of 1 tonne of iron and
steel. The term fresh water is used to refer to fresh tap water, groundwater, or surface
water added to the water system of an iron and steel factory, excluding the circulating water
for cooling.
Two methods used to calculate water footprint: the chain summation approach and the
stepwise accumulative approach.
From the water footprint calculation model, the following formula is obtained:

where WCF -water consumption footprint, DWF -directwater footprint, and VWF-virtual water
footprint.
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where Wfobtained-amount of water obtained, WFD-discharge-amount of direct water
discharge, and Wfloss-water loss caused by evaporation, infiltration, and by-products.

Fig 4: Iron and steel production

processes
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 Fig 5:Total water footprint of

steelworks enterprise in 2011.

RESULT

For the selected iron and steel factory the blue water (total WC) footprint was 2.44
*10^7 m3 and the gray water footprint was 6.5 *10^8 m3 in 2011.

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Incorporating water consumption into crop water footprint: A case study

of China's SouthNorth Water Diversion Project

The crop water footprint (WF) indicates the consumption of water for a crop during the
planting period, mainly through evapotranspiration.
This study aims at building an improved WF model to understand how much WF is
produced due to water diversion and how much crop WF increases during the transfer.
The proposed model is then used to calculate the WF of four major crops in five provinces
along China's SouthNorth Water Transfer Project in two steps-First, the WF of the water
transfer project (WFeng) is assessed in a supply chain analysis method-Second,
WFallocation model is built to distribute the projectWF for each crop/province.
Study area
China's SouthNorth Water Diversion Project is amega-engineering scheme with
construction and maintenance spanning over six decades
The project transfers water from humid Yangtze River basin to dry northern plains of the
Yellow, Huai and Hai river basins to improve agriculture and to mitigate drought.
The crop WF can be divided into two parts: green water and blue water. Green water-soil
water or rainwater component of crop water consumption and blue water-irrigation water
from rivers, lakes or reservoirs.
crop field WF consists-green WF (WFgreen),soil water and the blue WF(WFblue), or
irrigation water.

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Study area

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Fig 6: ProcessWF for crop water requirement

Result
The results showed evaporation and seepage as main sources of WF in the diversion
project.
obvious differences between the average field WF of crops and the average WF of crops
irrigated by the transfer project were observed.
Among the five provinces, Tianjin and Hebei presented higher WFblue and WF increase.
Among the four crops, cotton presented higher WFblue and WF increase.
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Questions????????

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THANK YOU

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