Here in rainy Callander it feels like we have no need to worry about a lack of fresh water. Indeed the likely long term trend in our weather is expected to be towards more rainfall and more flooding. However, we use 70% more water now than we did 30 or 40 years ago and all this water must be collected, cleaned, stored, pumped to our houses and then taken away again. All these processes require energy. In the UK the average person uses 120-240 litres of water each day. A more sustainable target would be 80 litres per day, and some simple changes (link to Tips section) in our habits can help a great deal.

Apart from the water we use ourselves there is also a lot of water used on our behalf in the processes used to grow and manufacture everything we buy. For example, to produce 1 cup of coffee requires 140 litres of water , 1 kg of beef requires 15,000 litres of water, and 1kg of rice requires 2000-4000 litres of water. This is not easy to reduce as an individual but buying local food and thinking carefully about purchases of items coming from water-stressed regions of the world will help.