IB Geography

Professor Hoekstra, from the University of Twente in the Netherlands, is the inventor of the Water Footprint concept, a method used to account for the total amount of water used to produce something.

Dr Perry said calculation procedures adopted in most estimates of water footprints are flawed, and that water footprints are incorrectly assessed on an absolute rather than a relative bas

A key concern was that ‘Water Footprints’ made no allowance for whether a producing area is water- plentiful or water-short.

“One must consider the scarcity or abundance of water and land, as well as downstream water uses to evaluate the significance of any environmental impact when compared to the status of these variables in the absence of grain or meat production. Simply comparing the water footprints of grain and meat does not provide helpful environmental information.

“It is overly simplistic and misleading to suggest that water footprints should be reduced without considering the context and purpose of water use.” “…Generalised water footprints are neither accurate nor helpful indicators for gaining a better understanding of water resource management.”

Previous media articles have reported claims that it takes between 50,000 and 100,000 litres to produce a kilogram of red meat. But these reported measures count every single drop of water that falls on an area of land grazed by cattle over the space of a year. And they do not take into account the fact that most of the water ends up in waterways, is used by trees and plants and in pastures, not grazed by cattle. “These calculations therefore attribute all rain that falls on a property to beef production, whereby the water is clearly being used for other purposes, such as supporting ecosystems” MLA explains in its Target 100 page.