The water footprint (WF) was introduced in 2002 as an indicator of freshwater use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer (Hoekstra, 2003). The Water Footprint Network (WFN) has since further developed the concept and related definitions (Hoekstra et al., 2011).
The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. The water footprint is a temporally and geographically explicit indicator, showing not only the volumes of water consumed and polluted but also when and where the water is consumed. The three WF components are defined as:
• blue water footprint: consumption of blue water resources (surface and groundwater);
• green water footprint: consumption of green water resources (rainwater insofar as it does not become run-off) (Falkenmark, 2003);
• grey water footprint: volume of freshwater that is required to dilute and thus reach a certain assimilation of the load of pollutants given natural background concentrations and existing ambient
#rainwater #waterforlife #savewater #rainreuse #recharge #well #green #environment #blueplanet #raintap #rainy #raindrop #freshwater #softwater
