I know we need to conserve water and such but why? Doesn’t it eventually flow back into the ground or evaporated and rained back down regardless of how it’s consumed, so it’s a cycle? Do we lose a bit per cycle?
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Earth doesn’t run out of water. Local places on earth do.
The earth’s total water system is not losing (many) water molecules naturally. Rust is changing water into hydrogen/oxygen. some plants do it naturally. But this amount is not noticeable and has been happening for billions of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting Earth might be able to make new water in its core. And when you digest sugar, you exhale 3 molecules of water https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/has-there-been-new-water-created-world-began#:~:text=So%2C%20there’s%20lots%20of%20water,new%20ones%20all%20the%20time.
Local places on earth run out of water: this is what you hear about in the news. Like the Colorado river that starts in Colorado USA, and feeds a huge region in the south west USA. That river is running out of water because it is being used to feed hungry cities in a desert region and it doesn’t have enough to supply the whole amount of people. Or it hasn’t gotten enough rain in its area.
But the Missouri and Mississipi rivers don’t run out (yet). Everyone living around those has plenty of water.
This is a map of the regions of water rivers in the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resource_region
Each region is actually a tree of rivers/creeks/lakes that feeds the main exit river of the region. So if your city is up high on the river tree, you might have less water than your region does on average.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_rivers_of_the_United_States_(by_main_stem)#/media/File:Mississippiriver-new-01.png
When rain falls on these regions, it eventually feeds the exit river, by falling down the tree of creeks/rivers until it hits the main trunk.
some regions don’t get much rain, either temporarily(drought) or never got much rain. Some regions rivers are being over used by the people/companies in that region.
Local places in a good region might have issues also. The further you are away from a main river and the higher altitude, the lower you have to dig a well to hit ground water. You might live in a valley that gets less rain than the neighbor valley, even tho you both are next to the same main river
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