News Briefs

News briefs and articles about water footprints, water use and availability, as well as interviews with key people in the fields of water footprints and water use.

Kansas Farmers Cut Ogallala Water Use – And Still Make Money

March 14, 2018

The Ogallala aquifer is a vast underground water source that people used to believe was endless. Extensive water pumping for crop irrigation proved that belief to be false, as sections of the aquifer began running dry. In 2012, a group of Kansas farmers decided to test their farming mettle by cutting their water use by […]

Report: Bottled Water Companies Rely on “Predatory” Tactics for Sales

March 5, 2018

A new report from Food and Water Watch entitled “Take Back the Tap,” looks at the booming business of bottled water. Nearly 64 percent of it comes from municipal taps and costs almost 2,000 times as much as tap water, which is significant when you consider bottled water companies target immigrant populations with their advertising. It […]

Results From First Study on Global Environmental Impacts of Apparel and Footwear Industries

February 27, 2018

ClimateWorks Foundation and  Quantis – a group of environmental sustainability experts and consultants – just released results of their study on global fashion industries. The report, “Measuring Fashion: Insights from the Environmental Impact of the Global Apparel and Footwear Industries,” is the first of its kind to assess the environmental impacts – including water footprints – of […]

Running Dry in Cape Town

February 15, 2018

Diane Kane splits her time between Cape Town and San Francisco, so she has had her share of drought and extreme water conservation measures. In this op-ed, she reflects on what the conservation measures mean in light of all the modern plumbing conveniences we take for granted. She also discusses what changes need to happen […]

Cape Town is Running out of Water. Is Los Angeles Next?

February 7, 2018

After three years of drought, as Cape Town inches ever closer to ‘Day Zero’ – the day municipal water taps are turned off because the reservoir is dry – we in the US might think we won’t face a similar predicament. The truth is we have our own water-stressed cities and LA tops that list. LA […]

Hong Kong Must Raise the Value it Places on Water to Tackle Runaway Consumption

February 7, 2018

As the world’s number one water user, Hong Kong needs to rethink how it values water in order to reduce consumption and face up to coming challenges. Water use in the Pearl River Delta cities will rival climate change as major environmental challenges. This will be made more difficult by the fact that  Hongkongers use […]

Produced and Gone Straight to Waste

February 7, 2018

The global population is growing quickly, and the FAO is asking whether we really need to produce more food to feed all those new people. According to FAO estimates, globally, we lose or waste one-third of all food produced for human consumption. That’s 1.3 billion tons of food that could be recovered and eaten by our planet’s current […]

A Billion-Dollar Investment in New York’s Water

January 29, 2018

The New York City water supply is widely considered a public jewel because of forward-looking protection initiatives, as evidenced by the city’s recently renewed waiver agreement with the New York State Health Department. Every day the city’s water system delivers over one billion gallons of largely unfiltered, incredibly high quality drinking water to nine million […]

Cape Town Water Crisis: ‘My Wife Doesn’t Shower Anymore’

January 25, 2018

A severe drought has forced Cape Town, South Africa’s municipal water authority to limit water consumption to 50 litres per person per day in an effort to delay Day Zero, set for 12 April, when the water supply will be turned off. Using such a small amount is no small feat considering a typical shower […]