Pat et al:
I like the idea of calling a cubic metre a kilolitre (kL) in the
non-scientific public world as Pat mentions. Kilolitre makes sense for every
day use by the public since it doesn't require a superscript.
kL is simpler to use and write.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: USMA Metric Association
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:57 PM
Subject: [USMA:45270] Re: Precipitation and water needs
Dear Jim and Martin,
Jim's figure of 70 cubic metres per person per year looks a lot higher than
Martin's 6.3 and 11 cubic metres per year!
Currently, with level 3A water restrictions in Melbourne β 70 kilometres from
Geelong β the people there are restricted to 1255 litres per person per day.
This amounts to about 57 cubic metres per person per year. By the way they're
called kilolitres here when used for measuring water.
In Geelong our local water authority, Barwon Water, says:
Did you know?...
a.. On average, a person uses about 200 litres of water per day, of which
5-10 litres is for basic survival, ie drinking and food preparation.
b.. The other 190 litres is discretionary and is used for washing (showers,
dishes, clothes, toilets) and the garden.
c.. Some communities have been successful in reducing average personal tap
water usage to as low as 130 litres per day.
d.. Approximately half the water supplied to urban areas in Australia ends
up as waste water, according to a report by the Institute for Sustainable
Futures prepared for the Water Services Association in 1998.
200 litres per day is about 73 000 litres per year (73 kL) , and
130 litres per day is about 47 000 litres (47 kL) per year.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Geelong, Australia
On 2009/06/16, at 4:19 AM, James R. Frysinger wrote:
The old Navy rule of thumb was to ensure that shipboard desalination plants
could provide 50 gal of water per day per man in addition to what was needed
for propulsion plant needs. That 50 gal figure works out to just about 192 L
daily for each man or about 70 m3 per man per year. Those human needs include
drinking water (the rule was prevalent in days of non-air-conditioned ships!),
showers, laundry, and cooking.
Once we get our new house built (soon, I hope!) we will look at the expense
of installing tanks and gutters to capture the rainfall from its roof and that
of our tractor shed. Recently we had a moderately heavy rainfall of nearly 50
mm. That house runoff would have amounted to about 6 m3 and the tractor shed's
runoff would have amounted to about 4 m3. I won't say that such runoff is
wasted, since we are sitting on a 100 ha farm and that water supplies some of
the needs of the pasture land and forest around us. But it might be nice to
redirect the runoff to the gardens and livestock.
Jim
Michael Payne wrote:
Interesting that most of this water requirement is for agriculture. I
looked at my water usage at home and it varies each year depending on how much
I water my lawn in summer. Last year we used about 6,3 cubic meters for two,
the previous year we used 11 cubic meters. This is showers, laundry and
watering the garden when required, normally July August. Bear in mind I'm gone
a lot and use hotel water. Still it does not seem like a lot of water when I
compare it to the 1000 cubic meters needed per person in the article below.
On another note, I read recently that it's illegal in a couple of western
states to collect rainwater off your roof. In Colorado they are trying to
change the law.
Mike Payne
----- Original Message ----- From: "James R. Frysinger"
<j...@metricmethods.com>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
Cc: <i...@cocorahs.org>
Sent: Saturday, 13 June 2009 13:36
Subject: [USMA:45230] Precipitation and water needs
I participate in CoCoRaHS (http://www.cocorahs.org/), an organization
that collects daily precipitation observations from a rapidly growing network
of nearly 10 000 volunteers in the U.S. (Please consider joining!) After the
daily report has been submitted the acknowledgment page appears and it contains
some sort of anecdote, which changes periodically. Below my signature is the
one that appeared today.
It's nice to see that this anecdote is entirely metric (with but one
exception), as is our National Weather Service. Ironically, CoCoRaHS requires
non-metric values from its volunteers; everything is measured in inches on
their reports.
I have my Davis Vantage PRO 2 weather station set up to read out in
metric units and must then do a conversion to submit my precipitation reports.
Since NWS keeps its records in metric units, it would be nice if CoCoRaHS
migrated in that direction. They could start by allowing metric data submission
as a option and then migrating their volunteers toward using metric rain
gauges, etc.
The anecdote reproduced here then would be immediately relevant to the
volunteers, since one liter is the same as a millimeter of rain falling on one
square meter of surface. And of course one cubic meter is the same as 1000
liters.
My records show that my 100 hectare farm received 1208.3 mm of rain
last year, a droughty year since the normal for this area is closer to 1500 mm.
Still, that means that 1.2 million cubic meters of rain fell on my farm in
2008, enough to "support" 1200 people. That's the beauty of the metric system
-- ease of calculation. So one can calculate the area of some location in
square kilometers and then look at the annual rainfall there. Every millimeter
of rain that fells on each square kilometer of that location is the amount
needed by one person -- one to one!
My mode of getting that water to them was provision of timber, eggs,
and cattle as well as potable runoff (downstream and via aquifers).
Jim
Water Footprint
The minimum water that each person requires, on average, for drinking,
hygiene and growing food is about 1,000 cubic meters per year. That's about 2/5
of an olympic size swimming pool. Because the distribution of global water
resources varies widely, some people get much more than this and some people
get less.
Researchers have recently developed the concept of a "water footprint".
As indicated on the water footprint web page (http://www.waterfootprint.org),
βThe water footprint of an individual, business or nation is defined as the
total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services
consumed by the individual, business or nation.β
You can figure out your own water footprint using the calculator (quick
and more extensive versions) on this site as well learn the total water
required to produce various products. Some interesting facts about our water
use from the water footprint web site:
* *The production of one kilogram of beef requires 16 thousand
litres of water.
* *To produce one cup of coffee we need 140 litres of water.
* *The water footprint of China is about 700 cubic meter per year
per capita. Only about 7% of the Chinese water footprint falls outside China.
* *Japan with a footprint of 1150 cubic meter per year per capita,
has about 65% of its total water footprint outside the borders of the country.
* *The USA water footprint is 2500 cubic meter per year per capita.
In addition to the water footprint web site, check out the August
2008 issue of Scientific American to learn more about the global variability of
fresh water.
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the forthcoming book, Metrication Leaders Guide.
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped
thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric
system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each
year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides
services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for
commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and
in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA,
NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information, contact Pat
at pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com or to get the free 'Metrication matters'
newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
