Water Miles

The following is a copy of an article I wrote which was published in the October/November 2008 edition of the NZ Plumbers’ Journal. Feel free to comment on the article or the concepts within it.

Introduction

New Zealand has an abundance of water compared with most countries and is able to export 5,000 tonnes of ‘virtual water’ per person every year in our – primarily agricultural – exports. In a sense then, Kiwis have a negative Water Footprint. But complacency about this fact leads to a failure to conserve water. The problem then becomes one of infrastructure cost and energy use rather than water use. This is a critical fact to understand and is effectively the opposite of hydro power (using energy to ‘create’ water) argues sustainability consultant Craig Brown.

Here, he describes his concept of ‘Water Miles’ – a measure of how much energy is required to provide water and wastewater services. He also defines and discusses Virtual Water, Peak Water and Water Footprints – concepts you’ll be hearing more about over the next year in the media.

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