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Peter Gleick blog post: Water for food – “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”

Posted by: Maven on May 2, 2009 at 7:46 am

From the City Brights Blog:

Agriculture — the production of food and fiber — is of vital importance for humanity. To paraphrase a popular ad from a few years ago, without food, life itself would be impossible. So for this post, here is an agricultural water number:

Water Number: Around 80% of water consumed by humans goes to agriculture, globally and in California.

Before I explain what I mean by this number (and the way I’ve phrased/presented it), readers should know that the number itself is neither good nor bad — it’s just a number. At the global level, it also isn’t very meaningful — much more important is the regional use and availability of water. But, still, agriculture is certainly the dominant human use of water in much of the world. It just takes a lot of water to grow things, whether it is water from rain, or water from sophisticated and complex irrigation systems. And we do need to grow things.

Read more of Peter Gleick’s blog post by clicking here.

May 2, 2009 · Filed Under Agriculture

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