Water footprint assessments are increasingly used to improve sustainable water management. The approach consists of four distinct steps: setting the goal and scope, calculating the water footprint of a product or process, evaluating sustainability, and formulating the required response towards sustainability. This study executed all these steps in the shrimp industry in coastal Bangladesh, using multiple tools including monitoring and measurement of ponds, semi-structured questionnaire-based interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and In-depth interviews for data collection. In first step, two research questions were formulated: what is the water footprint of the shrimp industry, and how does shrimp production and processing face water scarcity and pollution? Besides, only the shrimp farm and processing industry are considered as the research boundary. In the water footprint calculation, extensive farming with water exchange facilities had a blue water footprint of 1.87 m3/kg, while closed ponds without water exchange facilities had a lower blue water footprint, averaging 1.52 m3/kg. Semi-intensive farming used more blue water, around 8.640 m3/kg, despite its high production. Additionally, processing industries also had a considerable blue water footprint of ~0.021 m3/kg, which is entirely dependent on groundwater. Extensive farming also produced less grey water, ~0.008 m3/kg and ~0.015 m3/kg for ponds with water exchange facilities and closed ponds, respectively. The study used its own approach to explore the sustainability of the industry and found that farmers struggled with water availability and wastewater discharge, ultimately leading to increased groundwater usage. Increasing shrimp production with minimal use of feed and chemicals could potentially reduce the water footprint. This study has important implications for present and future policy interventions, particularly in decision-making regarding the sustainablewater supply without hampering groundwater resources and addressing challenges to transform the industry towards intensification.