It may not be sustainable to just go with the flow in the long-term, writes Tom McKinlay.
Lack of water is rarely a problem in the South. Indeed, its absence any time between about September and April is a cause for rejoicing. And its presence at other times of the year is borne with a combination of raincoats and stoicism.
Yet its importance has been underlined again this year by drought.
On the global stage, a United Nations report last week said stretched water supplies aggravated by climate change were likely to cause more conflict.
About 145 nations share river basins with their neighbours and need to promote co-operation over a resource likely to be disrupted by more frequent floods and heatwaves, the UN report said.
Nothing we have to worry about? Maybe.
And yet, as the Dunedin City Council-funded Sustainable Living Programme's week six class pointed out, our water footprint extends well beyond our shores.
Our water footprint (yes, we have one of those too, to go with our carbon footprint) includes the things we buy and consume. For example, your jeans may have taken up to 8000 litres of water to produce, according to the website waterfootprint.org.
A cup of tea takes 35 litres of water to produce, a coffee four times as much. There are other examples at the website, like soft drinks, for example, which require up to 310 litres of water to produce a half- litre bottle.
New Zealand's water footprint is calculated at 1589cu m per year per capita. That's above the world average of 1385cu m. And almost 60% of New Zealanders' footprint falls outside the country - in the water that goes into all those things we import.
The Sustainable Living course champions a more mindful approach to dealings with the natural world - which makes some sense when talking H2O.
While our green and blue orb is largely covered in water, most of it is saline and not much use to a thirsty sailor.
Indeed, just 0.003% of all the water on the planet is available for human use, and it makes economic sense to access only about a third of that.
Even here the impact we have had on the landscape has changed the way water follows its journey from the clouds to the sea.
In forested country, half of all the rain that falls finds its way into the soil and groundwater. In urban areas it is just 15%, and five times as much runs straight off the land into stormwater drains, helping to wash the contaminants from our roads out to sea.
It is all stuff to be aware of, but consistent with the Sustainable Living Programme's primary focus on the areas in which we can effect change ourselves, there are areas of water use at home on which we can all have an impact.
Shorter showers, mulching in the garden to cut down watering, using the half-flush button in the toilet, buying a front- loader washing machine next time around. There are loads more ideas at www.sustainableliving.co.nz
