Water Footprint as Indicator of Environmental Sustainability

The concept of water footprint has been recently introduced as an important indicating of human water consumption in an attempt to minimize environmental impacts. This paper discusses the concept of water footprint as an indicating of sustainability, aiming the rational use of water resources. In recent years, the scarcity of some natural resources has been widely discussed around the world and if the water is even greater concern in the face of the disordered use in irrigation and for drinking water by industry and agriculture. From this analysis, the water footprint appears as an indicator of sustainability of fresh water in its different types of consumption to be used consciously. Based on a review of the literature about the subject, the results show that to reduce the water footprint measures should be taken of the direct and indirect use of water primarily in irrigated agriculture.