Interview with Brian Richter, Author of ”Chasing Water: A Guide for Moving from Scarcity to Sustainability,” Part 2 of 3

What most people don’t think about is our indirect needs for water. For instance, for our food that we consume, it requires water to produce that food. Even though our food may not be produced locally, it is requiring water somewhere. So, when you add up all of the different parts of our personal water footprints, our daily water requirements, it turns out that food is at least two-thirds of our overall water footprints, we call it virtual water, and we’re not directly using it, so we don’t think about it as much. Each of us in our daily lives needs to become very water aware, and really understand how much water we’re using for different things, where that water comes from, so that we can all become better informed citizens about that.