Water Facts

Of all the water in the world, only 3% is fresh. Less than a third of 1% of this is available to humans. The rest is frozen in glaciers or polar ice caps, or is deep within the earth, beyond our reach. To put it another way, if 100 litres represents the world's water, little more than half a tablespoon of it is fresh water available for our use.

However, fresh water is essential to our existence, it allows us to produce food, manufacture goods and sustain our health. In fact, about 60 percent of our body is comprised of water.

Global water consumption has risen almost tenfold since 1900, and many parts of the world are now reaching the limits of their supply. World population is expected to increase by 45% in the next thirty years, whilst freshwater runoff is expected to increase by 10%. UNESCO has predicted that by 2020 water shortage will be a serious worldwide problem.

Australia is the driest continent on earth (excluding Antarctica), but we are the greatest consumers of water per capita.

The average annual rainfall in Australia is 469 mm/yr, well below the global average of 746mm/yr. 70% of our continent is classified as desert or semi-desert, with little or no precipitation.

Australians use more the than 1 million litres of freshwater per person each year, or about 24,000 GigaLitres.

That's enough to fill the Sydney Harbour 48 times over! About 70% is attributed to agricultural irrigation, 9% to other rural uses, 9% to industrial uses and 12% to domestic.

There is often a high amount of 'embodied water' associated with many items we use or consume. For example:

• It takes 41 500 litres to produce a kilo of meat
• It takes 500 litres to produce one orange
• It takes 1 340 000 litres to produce 1 tonne of aluminium
• It takes 50 litres to produce a copy of Saturday's newspaper
• It takes about 5000 litres of water to create one kilogram of rice
• It takes 4 litres to produce a bottle of beer

Source:Archer, J., Hodges, J., and LeHunt, R., (1993) 'The Water Efficient Garden'. Random House, Milsons Point, NSW, Australia.se.