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Sometimes seeing information laid out in a stylish infographic helps us to process otherwise complicated data. This is especially true when it comes down to our own consumption habits -- when it's laid out before our eyes, we might just stop and pause before we make our next move, whether it's throwing out the bag of rotten fruit into the trash instead of the compost or turning on the light in the bathroom when there's already plenty of natural light. And one thing many of us are guilty of is wasting water by letting the tap drip or waiting too long to fix leaky sinks and running toilets.
In anticipation for this year's World Water Day, Visualizing.org, the global open platform for data visualization, teamed up with Circle of Blue, the leading news organization reporting global water challenges, to issue a call-out to designers, researchers and data experts to highlight the world's urban water issues.
The winner of the competition, Visualizing.org announced, was the What is Your Water Footprint? visualization by Harvard Graduate School of Design students, Joseph Bergen and Nickie Huang. The fantastic infographic looks at your water consumption based on where you're from, what you eat/drink, and products you purchase. By moving your mouse around the interactive project, you can compare how much you consume, how much your country produces, total and urban population and the amount of water available per person while comparing data to various countries around the world.
Hopefully something like this will help us reevaluate our own habits and cause us to monitor our own wasteful activities. It's a startling reminder of how lucky we are in North America and how we have an uninhibited access to such a precious commodity.
