Daily commutes are draining our water reserves

摘要

Melbourne's transport uses 311b 1 of water each year; equivalent to flooding the city's centre 8 m deep; that is just one of the findings of our study looking at how much water different modes of transport use. We found that cars are the most water-intensive mode of transport, using on average 6.4 1 of water per passenger km, pkm. Diesel trains use 5.2 1 pkm and electric trains use the least, at 3.4 1 pkm. This means that a typical commuter can use between 140 1 and 350 1 of water per day to travel to work and back. This is at least as much as a Melbourne resident's daily household water use of 160 1.