The water footprint of Bursa province

Abstract

Water is the most important environmental resource and is invaluable because it is an
important factor for the continuation of life. The proposed water footprint as an indicator
for assessing the allocation of freshwater resources to a producer or consumer and it
takes into account direct and indirect water consumption and helps in managing water
resources. The WF of Bursa province was calculated. Its total surface area is 11,027
square kilometers. The total population of the province in 2021 is 3 million 56 thousand.
In the calculations, domestic, agricultural and industrial water footprints water
footprints were evaluated separately.The average WF of Bursa province was found
105,417 billionm3. Throughout the province, 77% of the WF is composed of WF
Industrial, 21% is WF domestic and 2% is WFagricultural. The average per capita water
footprint of Bursa province was found to be 7220 m3 year-1. The total water footprint of
the industrial sector has been calculated as 80.952 billion m3. The amount of industrial
gray water footprint in Bursa has been calculated as 80.822 billion m3. Total domestic
water footprint is calculated as 22.0645 billion m3. Gray water footprint was determined
as the majority of the domestic water footprint (75%). Direct and indirect water
footprints account for 24% and 1% of the total domestic water footprint, respectively. It
is important to reduce the use of blue water in agriculture, domestic and industrial
sectors.