Did you know that one cotton shirt accounts for about 2700 liters of water consumption? Carbon footprints have gotten a lot of publicity lately, but gauging by the shortage of one of the world’s most important natural resources, water footprints are just as important.

At waterfootprint.org you can calculate the amount of water consumed to produce your t-shirt, cup of coffee and even hamburger.

Not only is the quantity of water used in production of food and goods a concern, but also the environmental impacts that are associated with using the resource for mass production; intensive irrigation schemes can be detrimental, like in the case of Uzbekistan and the Aral Sea.

So how much water are you consuming? Here is a random sampling from waterfootprint.org for how much water it takes to produce various everyday commodities:

Apple: 70 liters for one apple.
Beef: 15,500 liters per kg of beef.
Wine: 120 liters for one glass.
Hamburger: 2400 liters for one hamburger.

[photo via Snapr, flickr]