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School of Geography

Water footprinting

Introduction
Each of us uses water at home for cooking, bathing, laundry but our larger water footprint is the ‘hidden’ water in all the products we use or consume. All the things we eat, all of the products we use and all the services we share use water. Water is used to grow, to process, to package, to distribute, to retail, to dispose of all the things we use and consume.
Most of this water is ‘hidden’. The consumer is unlikely to be aware of how much water is being used on their behalf to produce their goods and foodstuffs. Exploring water footprinting makes an interesting unit of work for secondary pupils.

Background information

Activities


A superb website on water footprinting – (virtual water by another name) packed full of ready to print resources and very useful data on the footprint of over 30 items with explanatory text.

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