※ [本文轉錄自 IA 看板]
作者: pursuistmi (common people) 看板: IA
標題: [新聞] 英國用水量甚巨
時間: Thu Aug 21 00:15:08 2008
標題: Revealed: the massive scale of UK's water consumption
Each Briton uses 4,645 litres a day when hidden factors are included
# Felicity Lawrence
# The Guardian,
# Wednesday August 20 2008
The scale of British water consumption and its impact around the world is
revealed in a new report today, which warns of the hidden levels needed to
produce food and clothing.
The UK has become the sixth largest net importer of water in the world, the
environment group WWF will tell a meeting of international experts in
Stockholm, with every consumer indirectly responsible for the use of
thousands of litres a day. Only 38% of the UK's total water use comes from
its own resources; the rest depends on the water systems of other countries,
some of which are already facing serious shortages.
The study makes the first attempt to measure the UK's total "water footprint"
and highlights the extent to which our imports come from countries which are
running out of fresh water. It calculates that:
· Average household water use for washing and drinking in the UK is about
150 litres a person daily, but we consume about 30 times as much in "virtual
water", used in the production of imported food and textiles;
· Taking virtual water into account, each of us soaks up 4,645 litres a day;
· Only Brazil, Mexico, Japan, China and Italy come higher in the league of
net importers of virtual agricultural water. People in poorer countries
typically subsist on 1,000 litres of virtual water a day;
· Different diets have different water footprints. A meat and dairy-based
diet consumes about 5,000 litres of virtual water a day while a vegetarian
diet uses about 2,000 litres.
"What's particularly worrying is that huge amounts of the food and cotton we
consume are grown in drier areas of the world where water resources are
either already stressed or very likely to become so in the near future," said
Stuart Orr, WWF's water footprint expert.
With modern patterns of consumption, businesses and consumers are
inadvertently contributing to the slow death of some of the world's most
important rivers, the charity warns, and we may not be able to depend on the
same supplies in the near future.
Experts at this week's World Water Week forum in the Swedish capital are
increasingly talking of fresh water as "the new oil", a finite resource that
is running out in some areas and will become more and more expensive with a
knock-on impact on consumer prices.
British retailers are already examining how much of their food comes from
areas where water reserves are depleted and whether they will need to
relocate some of their production as water runs out.
Marks & Spencer is working with WWF to calculate the water footprint of its
entire food and clothing ranges. M&S's technical director, David Gregory,
said the availability of water over the next decade was already a key part of
the company's strategic decisions about where to source food for its stores.
"We are already in discussion with WWF about our decisions about where to
grow crops in the future," he said.
The retailer is auditing the water footprint of five key crops -
strawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes and roses - to establish where and
how they should be grown in the next few years to make best use of water
resources. The WWF report identifies Spain, northern African countries
including Egypt and Morocco, South Africa, Israel, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as
countries which face acute water stress and yet supply the UK with
substantial exports of their water.
Sainsbury's agronomist, Debbie Winstanley, confirmed that water would be "on
every agenda in sourcing food".
"From our point of view we've got to look at where our growers are going to
get their water from," she said. Most British supermarkets currently depend
on southern Spain for salad crops, such as lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and
peppers, as well as broccoli out of season through the winter months.
But over-extraction of water for horticulture and the tourist industry have
led to a crisis there. Aquifers have become severely depleted and the water
table has been infiltrated by the sea. "There are massive challenges with
water in places like Murcia [southern Spain]. We have to look at least 10
years ahead in terms of security of supply. Murcia will have to look very
different in five years' time.
"We'll have to look at new desalination technologies, and we may have to look
at crops that can cope with more saline conditions, such as broccoli. We take
tomatoes out of Morocco in winter, and we've looked very hard at Moroccan
water, but it's complex; if you use more greenhouse production here it uses
more energy. Peas and beans are a steady all-year market. We've got to think
about how we get them here in a responsible manner," she said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/20/water.food1
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