Water consumption is divided into 3 main categories:
- Domestic usage
- Agricultural usage
- Industrial usage
Here, we explain the correlation between water consumption and how it increases with development...
Domestic usage -
HICs- high income countries use water for a lot of domestic practices
- Luxuries
- Washing cars
- Filling swimming pools
- Personal hygiene
- Flush - 6-12 litres
- Shower - 60-80 litres
- Bath - 120-200 litres
- Kitchen appliances
- Dishwasher
- Washing machine- 70-120 litres
- Gardening
LICs- Low income countries do not have as many houses with piped water
- Rely on women and children
- Girls rarely go to school
- Walk several km daily to fetch water (20kg)
- Lack of water=> quarrels between husband and wife
- Very difficult to get water
- Used sparingly
- Washing up done by hand, same water used for hygiene purposes
- If living near water source, do washing at source
Industrial Usage
HICs
- Large scale factories
- Have enough money
- Millions of litres of water used per day
- Coca Cola production of various items in India uses 1 million litres of water a day (example)
LICs
- Industry is small scale
- Run from self-built units
- Run from homes
Agricultural Usage
HICs
- Irrigation methods
- Automated spray system
- 75 litres per second
- Easy to operate (just press button)
- People take it for granted
LICs
- Irrigation methods
- Hand worked bucket
- 2 litres per second
- Someone needed to operate it