The Water Footprints of Indonesia

The water footprint of Indonesian consumption was about 270 billion m³/yr in the period 1997-2001, which comes to 1317 m³/yr per person (Hoekstra and Chapagain, 2008). About 10% of this footprint lies outside Indonesia, which means that Indonesia still has a relatively high degree of water self-sufficiency.

Virtual water trade between the islands within Indonesia plays a key role in ensuring water security. The interprovincial virtual water flows are primarily caused by trade in rice. Java, the most water scarce island, has a net virtual water import and the most significant external water footprint. This large external water footprint is relieving the water scarcity on this island. Trade will remain necessary to supply food to the most densely populated areas where water scarcity is highest (Java).

There are two alternative routes to reduce the overall water footprint of Indonesia. On the one hand, it may be reduced by promoting wise crop trade between provinces – i.e. trade from places with high to places with low water efficiency. On the other hand, the water footprint can be reduced by improving water efficiency in those places that currently have relatively low efficiency, which equalises production efficiencies and thus reduces the need for imports and enhances the opportunities for exports. In any case, trade will remain necessary to supply food to the most densely populated areas where water scarcity is highest (Java).

More info:

http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Report37-WaterFootprint-Indonesia.pdf

13 Ways to Conserve Water

Most households use around 350 gallons of water per day, but there are easy steps to lessen this amount!

1. Use cold water for some washes. This will cut down on energy use and make your clothing last longer, which in turn, will lead to less washes.
2. Inspect and replace dripping laundry pipes. These add up!
3. Switch to filtered tap water. One gallon of spring water (or bottled water of any kind) uses much more than just the water in the bottle. Energy and water is used to transport the water, make the bottle, and run the equipment. Buy your own filter and place it on the tap, or place a water filter in your fridge.
4. If you wash dishes by hand, fill the basin with water to wash your dishes. Wash all of the dishes in the basin, then rinse all of the clean dishes. This wil cut down on water since you won't be running it the entire time while washing the dishes.

5.Turn off the water while brushing your teeth! This will, on the average, save 3 gallons of water for each time you brush. Use this same piece of advice for shaving and anything else you do by the sink.

6. Switch to a Low Flow Toilet. Sounds like a lot of work, but it can save 20,000 gallons per year!

7. Capture your Shower Water and Use it for Toilet Water

8. Don't run the dishwasher or washing machine unless it's a full load! Get the most out of that water by making sure you really have a full load.
9. Water your grass/plants in the morning so the water doesn't evaporate right away.
10. Limit your shower time -- and your kids. Limiting your kids (and you) to ten minutes instead of 30 minutes will drastically slash your water bill.
11. Reconsider installing that new pool. On the average, pools use 18,000 - 20,000 gallons to fill it. Warm weather can evaporate several inches of water in dry climates each day, resulting in hundreds of lost gallons! Make sure your pool is completely sealed off and free of cracks and leaks to save this valuable water.
12. Calculate your water footprint to see how much water you waste. These results might get you motivated!
13. Don't use soaps that take extra water to rinse off. These chemical agents can be harmful to the human body. Opt for more earth friendly hand soap, organic shower gel, cleaners and detergents.

50 Things You Can Reuse

1. Reuse your blankets and towels. Bring them to a local shelter that will be glad to put them to good use and give animals a soft, warm place to sit.

2. Reuse seeds from fruit and vegetables and try to grow them!

3. Reuse old plastic bags. There are 10 creative ways to reuse plastic bags here.

4. Reuse paper bags as school book covers, or be a little more creative with these ideas.

5. Cut used pieces of paper into scrap pieces of paper (a message pad!).

6. Reuse stove heat by opening up the stove once you are done with it and letting the warm air into your home in colder weather. Reuse the heat!

7. Reuse coffee grinds by keeping them aside and placing them into your garden or soil.

8. Reuse coffee that you don't drink by putting it over ice and placing it in the fridge for an iced coffee later.

9. Reuse Christmas trees (not the fake ones) by putting them outside for birds and letting it naturally break down.

10. Reuse packing peanuts, air pillows, bubble wrap and boxes for your own ebay shipping, or bring them by the local post office or recycling center for others to use.

11. Reuse pens and art supplies by donating them to local schools.

12. Reuse your old carpet. Even slightly dirty carpets can have a second life.

13. Reuse your old food scraps by composting them.

14. Reuse your used margarine and butter tubs by cleaning them and keeping them for leftovers (free ziploc containers!).

15. Reuse old clothing by donating it to a local charity.

16. Reuse the stuffing from old pillows and comforters into new items. Reuse the pillow covers for rags.

17. Reuse used wrapping paper and save it for next year.

18. Reuse newspaper, interesting magazines, and other paper products by using them as wrapping paper.

19. Reuse kiddie pool water on plants and shrubs.

20. Reuse your old paint by finding things to paint in your home, touch up, or donate it to a local charity.

21. Reuse your old toilet paper rolls.

22. Reuse old wallpaper and turn it into one of a_willow's suggestions!

23. Never throw away an old book, donate it to a library or to your recycling center, or a school! They can reuse it.

24. Reuse old curtains as rags for cleaning your car.

25. Reuse your old electronics by selling them on Craigslist or on eBay.

26. Reuse old glass containers with lids and save them for leftovers, or, make your own jam or jelly. Food safe airtight glass containers would be great for storing rice, pasta, sugar and flour.

27. Reuse your old sneakers by donating them to Nike's Shoe recycling program (okay, this is more recycling, but it's important!)

28. Reuse greeting cards.

29. Reuse your old toothbrush and use it to clean hard to reach areas like around the sink, your drains, faucets and grout.

30. Save stale bread and give it to the birds in the backyard (be sure to rip it small enough so they can eat it!).

31. Make a piece of artwork with your old metal cans.

32. Make your own checker set by reusing your old bottle caps.

33. There are over 20 ways to reuse your old furniture here.

34. Sell or donate your old cellphone to the one of many companies out there.

35. Sell old clothing and let others reuse it, provided it looks good still.

36. For your next home renovation project, you might be able to reuse your old floor tiles.

37. Reuse popsicle sticks with these ingenius, crafty ideas.

38. Even bicycle tires can be reused.

39. Reuse old seafood seashells by crushing them and using them in your garden as decoration.

40. There are at least five ways you can reuse your old drinking straws.

41. Reuse insulation when building a home, or adding insulation. This will save energy and money!

42. There are some creative things you can do with old metal pie pan plates.

43. Reuse old aluminum foil by judging whether you it is clean enough to use again. If you're using it for bread or dry goods, you should be able to shake it off and set it aside for next time (provided it is clean).

44. Reuse old spray bottles by first making sure they are okay to reuse (see the back of the bottle) and filling them with water to spray plants.

45. Reuse your old CDs and DVDs with these tips.

46. Reuse your old yard debris! Leaves, lawn cuttings, and wood chips naturally fertilize and add nutrients to your soil.

47. If you receive a gift in a gift bag, save it for another occasion and reuse that bag!

48. Is your old keyboard the perfect seedling starter?

49. Reuse your old toothpaste tubes.

50. Yes, you can even reuse your mattress.

Source:

http://www.squidoo.com 

3R: Reduce

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas behind climate change. Your carbon footprint is unique to you. How you travel, use electricity, and even how you eat are all factors.

USE AUTOMOBILES LESS

-- carbon omissions vehicles produced 95,000 pounds of global- warming pollution per year.

• go by public transit
• ride a bicycle
• use you feet walk
• take trains or busses not planes

LOWER EMISSIONS

-- if we must use a car we can ensure that we do our best todecrease the damage caused by automobiles

• drive a fuel-efficient or an alternative fuel vehicle vehicles – driving a typical car for a year produces 95,000 pounds of global-warming pollution
• keep vehicles running efficiently -- ensure you have a functioning catalytic converter to reduce exhaust emissions
• don’t leave a vehicle idling simply to keep the interior warm in the winter or the air conditioner running in the summer
• avoid jack-rabbit starts and stops, and slow down
• keep tires properly inflated -- you can save fuel and cut pollution

PLANT A TREE

• Planting a tree is good because trees give off oxygen that we breathe and trees take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which filters our air, and trees prevents soil erosion. It’s much better to a plant tree that is native to your area and one that doesn't require heavy irrigation.

LOWER ENERGY CONSUMPTION

• turn off all not needed lights
• replace existing light bulbs with energy saving bulbs -- compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) use about 65 percent less energy than regular bulbs
• adjust thermostat – get an thermostat you can schedule to turn off when you are working. Also set it down a degree in winter and up a degree in summer -- you’ll spare the air 500 pounds of carbon dioxide and save up to 15 percent on energy bills
• clean or replace your air conditioner and or furnace filters – this increases efficiency, running in peak condition uses less energy. Nearly 50% of a household's energy costs go toward heating and cooling
• use ceiling fans instead of air conditioners -- will reduce your cooling costs by at least 60%.
• keep cold drinking water in your fridge or drink room temperature water (it’s good for you) - The electricity consumed by North America's water coolers in one year is equal to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by 700,000 cars

MINIMIZE THE GARBAGE WE CREATE AND THROW OUT

-- every day North Americans throw away almost 5 pounds of garbage each!

• simplify your life as much as possible - create less waste for the future
• stop using disposable start using reusable products like: containers for food and beverage, and products such as disposable cups and plates, razors, towels, writing pens, diapers, shopping bags, etc.
• use washable dishes and utensils instead of disposables
• use cloth napkins and hand towels instead of paper towels
• use rubber stamps instead of address labels
• take photos with a digital not disposable camera
• practice paperless communications when possible
• compost kitchen and garden organic waste – over two thirds of the waste produced in North America can be composted, yet we still send thirty million tons of leaves and grass clippings to landfills each year. Also composting organic kitchen and garden wastes helps to build healthy soil and reduces the amount of materials going to the landfill. Composting also improves the quality of our air and water.
• buy smart and cook less food – give care packages to our guests. At least 28 billion pounds of edible foods are wasted each year - or over 100 pounds per person. That’s about 2 million pounds!
• avoid disposable decorations - like balloons and crepe paper/streamers, instead make your own from salt dough or bakers clay – decorate newsprint, tissue or scrap paper with potato stamps. Cut up old cards. 

QUIT SMOKING

- Cigarette butts litter – so pick them. Plus by now everyone knows second-hand smoke is a major indoor air pollutant and health hazard. When you quit, both you and your family will lead longer and healthier lives. 

CONSIDER PACKAGING

- Did you know if every family reused just 2 feet of holiday ribbon, the 60,000 km saved could tie a bow around the entire planet? 1/3 of all household waste is packaging materials Canadians spend about $4 billion on wrappings, decorations and gifts each winter 2.65 billion Christmas cards sold yearly in the USA could fill a football field 10 stories high.

• where possible buy without packaging
• buy in bulk to cut down on packaging waste
• skip the bag or use reusable bags
• choose goods with eco-friendly packaging
• look for wrapping paper that is recycled or recyclable
• twine can be as festive as pre-packaged ribbons
• use homemade wrapping decorations
• use reusable containers, like shoe boxes
• wrap presents in old comics, maps, magazines or newsprint
• cut up old cards to make gift tags
• make the wrapping part of the gift wrapped in fabric, like a scarf for ribbon, wrap things like wedding shower gifts in bath towels and table cloths

BE A WISE WATER USER

• save / conservation water
• don’t throw chemicals in our sewers
• fix tap leaks
• take shorter showers -- save hundreds of gallons of water a month.
• turn your hot water tank down -- if half the house holds in North America turned their water heaters down ten degrees Fahrenheit six degrees Celsius it would prevent 239 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted each year.
• add an automatic rain sensor to your manual or automatic sprinkler -- 90% of people over water their lawns

REDUCE ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

Minimize the Damage

• practice organic lawn care and organic gardening
• reduce the use of pesticides and herbicides
• eliminate the use of pesticides for cosmetic reasons
• take old paints, chemicals computers to recycle centers
• don’t litter
• use de-icers that are less damaging to the environment than salt and sand

BUY ECO-FRIENDLY

- Keep the environment in mind whenever you purchase anything Purchase environmentally safe / eco friendly products such as

• eco-safe biodegradable soaps and cleaners
• bio degradable plastics
• organic pesticides
• clothing where material is organically grown
• products made from sustainable products
• shop for gifts at antique stores or estate sales
• organic cloth napkins
• replace paper towels with cloth towels
• bleach-free, toilet paper - made from the highest post-consumer waste content you can find (80% minimum)
• building materials

PURCHASE ORGANICALLY GROWN FOOD

• local grown food – local grown food is not only fresh but it is easer on the environment because it takes less fuel to get it to the consumer, but it also has minimal packaging and much more of it is organically grown.

CHOOSE COMPANIES WHO WORK TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT

– more and more companies are trying to be environmental conscious seek out and support proactive businesses

SHARE

• team up to buy rarely used items - sharing decreases the energy and pollution from mining, manufacturing, packaging, and transporting new goods
• Organize a shared tool shed - If you only use things like your ladder, hedge shears, garden tools once in a while, consider lending them to others
• Set up a book exchange at you office or community center

Source:
ardentgreenliving.com

Sustainability and Resilience

The uncomfortable bottom line of sustainability is the insight that the biosphere is limited.  In its crude form, the idea of ‘limits to growth’ dominated 1970s environmentalism.  Evidence of resource substitution (fibre optics for copper cables, light plastics for steel) and improved resource use technologies (e.g. improved technologies for the discovery and exploitation of oil reserves) have allowed this view to be pilloried as unrealistic ‘flat-earthism’.  On the other hand, the spread of persistent organic pollutants, the ozone hole and the growing certainly of anthropogenic climate change caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases demonstrate that the fundamental point is perfectly valid.  The earth’s capacity to yield products for human consumption, to absorb or sequestrate human wastes (especially novel compounds), and to yield ecosystem services are all of them limited.  The idea that that there is always somewhere to absorb externalities is flawed, and it is a myth of progress that living systems will always recover from human demands. 

Moreover, as environmental capacity is reached, institutions for sharing the earth are placed under intolerable strain.  

The science of resilience is central to an understanding of the planetary future, and the metaphor of resilience (and its limits) is valuable for its contribution to more general debate.  For decades, message taken from the
science of ecology by society more generally was that ecosystems were homeostatic – that once a stress was removed, they would bounce back to their former state.  This comforting metaphor implied that there was no reason to fear that human misuse of the global environment would lead to irretrievable breakdown.  The bleak message of the Gaia hypothesis, that the biosphere could be understood as a self-regulating system, was reinterpreted with shocking anthropocentric complacency to imply that it would therefore always support human life. The earth may function to maintain life, but not necessarily life in the stunning biodiversity we know today, and certainly not human life. 

Ecology has moved on. Non-linear dynamics are accepted as an inherent element in ecosystem function.  Polluted lakes do not necessarily return to their former state when pollution stops; climate can not be expected to vary around some mean approximating to the conditions of the last 30 years; it is highly likely that extinction of certain species will change the amplitude and frequency of ecosystem change in ways that constrain human opportunities; novel compounds and broad-taxon genetic manipulation may well generate shifts in ecosystem form and function.  

The biosphere is not infinite.  As Edward Wilson observes, ‘the biosphere, all organisms combined, makes up only one part in ten billion of the earth's mass.  It is sparsely distributed through a kilometre-thick layer of soil, water and air stretched over a half billion square kilometres of the surface'.  

The capacity of nature to meet human needs depends on both its internal dynamics and its dynamic responses to human stresses.  The resilience of the biosphere is critical to the sustainability of human enterprise on earth.

Source:

The Future of Sustainability Re-thinking Environment and Development in the Twenty-first Century

Report of the IUCN Renowned Thinkers Meeting, 29-31 January 2006

The Fact About Poverty

1. 1.1 billion people survive on less than $1 per day.  70 percent live in rural areas where they are highly dependent on ecosystem services 

2. Inequality has increased over the past decade. During the 1990s, 21 countries experienced declines in their rankings in the Human Development Index 

3. Over 850 million people were undernourished in 2000–02, up 37 million from the period 1997–99.

4. Per capita food production has declined in sub-Saharan Africa  

5. Some 1.1 billion people still lack access to improved water supply, and more than 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation 

6. Water scarcity affects roughly 1–2 billion people worldwide. 

7. Global improvements in levels of poverty are skewed by rapid economic growth in India and China; poverty elsewhere (especially in sub-Saharan Africa) is profound and persistent

Source:

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

The Fact About State of the Biosphere

State of the world’s ecosystems
•  By 1980, humans estimated to appropriate forty per cent of potential terrestrial net primary production.  
•  In 1994, 75 per cent of the habitable earth estimated to have been disturbed by human activity.   
• In 2003 the global population of large predatory fish had been reduced to only 10% of levels before industrial fishing began.

Change in ecosystems: •  More land was converted to cropland in the 30 years after 1950 than in the 150 years 1700 - 1850. 

•  20% of the world’s coral reefs were lost and 20% degraded in the last several decades.
•  Amount of water in reservoirs quadrupled since 1960.
•  Withdrawals from rivers and lakes doubled since 1960.
 

Change in biogeochemical cycles: •  Flows of biologically available nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems doubled since 1960.
•  Flows of phosphorus tripled.
•  50% of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer ever used has been used since 1985.
•  60% of the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 since 1750 has taken place since 1959.

Source:

1. Hannah, L  et al, (1994) ‘A preliminary inventory of human disturbance of world ecosystems’, Ambio 23: 246–250. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

2. Myers, R., and Worm, B. 2003, 'Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities', Nature, vol. 423, pp. 280-283.

3. Vitousek P M,  Ehrlich P R, Ehrlich A H and Matson P A (1986) ‘Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis’, BioScience 36: 368–373.