If you think your morning cup of coffee only has 12 ounces of water in it, you're sorely mistaken—it has closer to 40 gallons. Conservation scientists say it's time we think about how much water goes into growing, manufacturing, and shipping our food, and about where exactly that water originated.
Concerns over greenhouse gas emissions have vaulted the term "carbon footprint" into the mainstream vernacular. Now, by promoting the concept of a "water footprint" with the goal of including it on product labels, researchers are hoping to draw similar attention to how drastically we're draining our most precious resource. As the water footprint gains popularity, however, researchers are struggling to reach a consensus on how best to measure that footprint so the public understands its full impact.
As currently defined, a product's water footprint is an inventory of the total amount of water that goes into its manufacture. For that ...
