15May 2017

REVIEW OF METHODOLOGIES OF WATER FOOTPRINT.

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Water resource is becoming a scarce commodity in many parts of the world necessitating its conservation and efficient use. Water footprint is used to give an idea on the amount of water different products need for their production, consumption and disposal of their waste.There is therefore some need to quantify the volumetric amount and the environmental impact of using water inproducing and consuming goods and services. In this article, the different methodologies of calculating water footprint (WF) are reviewed with anaim of deciding their possible applications in everyday life. As the methodologies are evolving each day, it means they number into dozens and as such only articles from Web ofScience journals published after 2010 were reviewed to reduce and narrow the scope of study. Generally, themethodologies revolved around the amount of water consumed in producing a good or service and the likely effect on the environment. The approach and the quality of data used to calculate WF determines the acceptability of the results. Therefore, methods should try toconsider all the water components wherever necessary, that is, the green, blue and grey water.The recommendation drawn from the study is to consolidate the methodologies into one acceptableamong the researchers, scientists and stakeholders for uniformity, easy of interpreting the results andimprove its usefulness in policy making.

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[Gara Takawira. (2017); REVIEW OF METHODOLOGIES OF WATER FOOTPRINT. Int. J. of Adv. Res. 5 (May). 1-5] (ISSN 2320-5407). www.journalijar.com

Gara Takawira
Tongji University, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, UN Environment-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development

DOI:

Article DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/4071      
DOI URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/4071

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