Harvard Graduate School of Design students Joseph Bergen and Nickie Huang are asking you to calculate your water footprint for World Water Day 2011.
The students are winners of Visualizing.org and Circle of Blue’s World Water Day data visualization challenge. The data design website and Traverse City, Mich.-based water news organization posed a challenge in February–find some urban water data and design a way to help others visualize urban water trends and issues.
In concert with World Water Day’s theme, “Water for Cities,” the two organizations say a flood of urban residents to cities will make managing access to water for drinking, cleaning and use by industry more difficult. They said in 2008, more than half of the world’s population lived in cities. That number has increased to 3.3 billion today.
The students received $5,000 for their take on water issues.
Click on a country and compare its total and urban population, water supply and usage and water per person with other countries by moving your cursor across the world map.
Calculate your own water footprint by selecting the coffee cup to the right. It will open to a menu where you can find out how much water it takes to produce items of food, beverages and products. The microchip takes about 16,000 liters of water. A cup of coffee is 1,120 liters per cup.
The visualization also prints labels–print out a water usage label for your country or your favorite t-shirt, leather shoes, beer glass or chicken.