Blue, Green, and Gray Water Use
Highlighting the different ways human influence how water moves.
Why did we make these images?
Each image highlights direct human links to the water cycle. Blue Water deals with human water movement. Green Water highlights water that is moved through plants and agriculture including livestock. Gray Water is used to dissolve pollutants and often involves water quality issues or excessive heat.
What makes these images different?
These images focus in on the direct human-water interactions that are usually a very small part of the water cycle if they are ever mentioned at all. Our Green Water poster is essentially taking the small arrow of "evapotranspiration" off a water cycle image and devoting a whole poster to it including the idea of land use change. Gray Water highlights water quality issues, rarely used in water cycle imagery.
How do we recommend you use them?
The terms are rarely used outside of hydrologist circles but are important distinctions. Just taking time to think about these unique ways that humans interact with water will have benefits for your students. Most of these are never shown as arrows on a traditional water cycle diagram.
Full Posters
Additional Downloads
Drawing attention to the different and subtle ways that humans change water movement is important to build individual connection with water use and availability. These connections can promote water conservation and actions to support better use of our limited water resources. You can download our posters, individual images, and lesson plan materials below.
We want your feedback!
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions about the website or resources, please direct them to sophie_hill@byu.edu.
These original images were created by Mattia Lo Russo, Illustration Student. To see more of his work, visit his Instagram page @mattialorussoart.