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Water conservation can begin with your dinner plate. Sure, it looks like merely a hamburger with cheese, a baked potato and a cup of coffee.

But look at it in terms of water: ● It took about 464 gallons of water to produce that quarter pound of beef, ● 108 gallons to produce a potato, ● 37 gallons to make 1 ounce of cheese ● and 37 gallons of water to create your 8-ounce cup of coffee.

This concept of calculating how much water goes into the production of food or other items is called "virtual water." Instead of seeing only the item in front of you — say, a ribeye steak — you look at where it came from, how the cattle was raised, how many gallons of water were used in irrigation to produce the feed the cattle ate, how many gallons of water were used to create the fertilizer and pesticides used in raising the feed corn, how much water was consumed by the actual animal, how many resources went into getting that animal from the ranch to the slaughter house to the packing plant to the store to you.

As food and energy costs continue to rise, and concern about the effects of global warming increases, many consumers are looking at choices differently. Our community consolidates car trips to save gas and plans meals based on coupons and sales instead of convenience.

Water is a prized resource in our part of the world and we face huge policy questions as communities in Arizona continue to grow in size and population. We must come to terms with how we use this priceless and limited commodity.

Giant water problems involve regions, municipalities, states and tribal governments and are so involved and technical that they're too huge for many people to tackle.

So we come back to the dinner plate.

Agriculture is by far the largest user of water in Arizona, and for the world, said University of Arizona Professor George Frisvold, who studies resource economics. He has been talking with agricultural producers about water policy for a research project.

"People will say agriculture uses all this water, but they'll say we're not having swimming pools and using it up, we're putting it into food that people are using," Frisvold said. "A frustration for them is people don't think, 'I'm sitting down and having my dinner and I'm having my salad' — they're not thinking and not realizing how much water went into the lettuce you're consuming."

Water policy — even the words sound wonky — comes down to this: How much do we have, who gets to say how it's used, and when push comes to shove who benefits and who loses? The tendency is to think about water in regional terms or as a hyper-local issue, about what we can do to save water. Using low-flow toilets and desert landscaping are valuable things to do and they help conserve water. But the calculus of water is much more complex.

Today, food ties the world together. We make choices every day — hamburger or veggie burger, a baked potato or rice, an apple or banana, a glass of beer or wine — that have consequences across the globe. Wasting food, or even not finishing the whole pot of coffee, becomes a much bigger deal once we realize how much water goes into the things we consume.

And virtual water should play an important role in deciding what industries a community wants to attract and support. The City of Peoria in Maricopa County has developed a policy that requires the city to calculate the economic value, per gallon, of water when changes to land use are proposed.

"They're saying, what if we have houses going on land versus some industry going on the land?" said Sharon Megdal, director of the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona. "It's not the factor considered, but what does it mean for tax revenue, jobs — not just look at this as the water used on the land, but the whole picture associated with water use."

Seeing water in every action and in every product takes a change in thinking. But once the connection is made, it's hard to ignore, especially as food shortages around the world prompt riots and hunger. Eating lower on the food chain — specifically, eating less meat — makes the biggest difference.

"I think people at the global level are talking about this with global trading in food, but it's only now becoming a local issue," said Pat Gober, the co-director of the Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University. "If somebody in Phoenix consumes a hamburger it's not consuming much of Phoenix's water, but it's consuming Brazil's water, or wherever the beef was raised. It's the globalization of our food supply.

"Food as a way of conserving water," said Gober. "I think it's an important thing to think about."

For more information go online to:

• http://h2oconserve.org

• http://discovermagazine.com/2008/ photos/28-whats-your-virtual-water-iq

• www.waterfootprint.org

Wine, 5 oz.: 38 gallons

Corn, 1 pound: 108 gallons

Egg, 1: 53 gallons

Leather bag: 6,340

Source: Discover Magazine