Like when ppl say don’t wash your yard or car with a hose. Isn’t the extra water or for that matter all water either seeping underground and adding to groundwater table or being evaporated into nature to be recycled? In both cases the water will be filtered enough to be potable….
In: Physics
Wasting water can have different impacts depending on the situation.
In some places, like California, water is drawn from an underground aquifer. If water is drawn from that aquifer faster than it is naturally replenished, then the aquifer dries up over time. In extreme cases it can also cause “subsidence” which basically means the pores and channels that held water collapse and it can no longer hold water (and the ground level drops).
In places that draw water from rivers, wasting it can severely reduce the river water volume as the water that is drawn evaporates or ends up somewhere else. This can cause big problems for the fish and animals that rely on the water, but also other water users downstream as water levels drop (see: lake Mead).
I live next to a very large body of fresh water, wastewater is treated and returned, so we don’t have the same impacts as above, but in our case wasting water leads to excess energy use to pump and treat it as well as costs to upgrade infrastructure to increase capacity to serve that waste.
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