Green, Blue and Grey Water Footprint 1
- Green Water Footprint - refers to the rainwater and soil moisture consumed by plants and crops in their cultivation.
- Blue Water Footprint - refers to irrigation from surface water and groundwater that is consumed (i.e. evaporated or incorporated into a crop) during cultivation.
- Grey Water Footprint - refers to the freshwater required to dilute pollution (e.g., farm runoff) and bring the water resource up to safe water quality standards.
Green blue grey water footprint for selected countries 2
A table extracted from Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010)2 containing "The green, blue and grey water footprint of selected animal products for selected countries (m3 /ton)"
Water footprint of a beef cow and its derived products 2
A table extracted from Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010)2 containing "The green, blue and grey water footprint of beef cow and its derived products"
- *The feed amounts included here represent the global average feed intake of beef cattle. Obviously, the feed composition of individual cows will deviate based on the production system and composition of the concentrate feed applied.
- * The percentage of the total water footprint of a beef cow attributed to each product refers to the ‘value fraction’ for that product. The amount of a certain product (in kg) coming from the total animal is based on the ‘product fraction’ for that product. In the blue water footprint, we added the water footprint of processing the slaughtered cow into the derived product
Footnotes
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Water Footprint Calculator - The Value of Rainwater: Why Green Water Footprints Matter ↩
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Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010) - The green, blue and grey water footprint of farm animals and animal products ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4