Does it take 15,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beef?

The claim that producing one kilogram of beef requires 15,000 litres of water is a misleading statistic that fails to account for the different types of water used in agriculture. This figure, popularized by the "water footprint" concept developed by Arjen Hoekstra and Mesfin Mekonnen, is a global weighted average where 94% of the total is "green water"—natural rainfall that falls on pastures. Experts like Tim Hess and Mark Mulligan distinguish this from "blue water," which is sourced from precious underground aquifers and rivers. While UK beef production uses only about 67 litres of blue water per kilogram, intensive systems in arid regions like the US High Plains can use up to 8,000 litres. Consequently, using a single global average obscures the actual environmental impact, as rain falling on a field does not carry the same ecological cost as depleting shared water reserves for irrigation.