Eli5 why do we run out of water?

Question

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?

In: 39

Answer 1

The “explainlikeimfive” answer is “There is no water shortage, it’s propaganda”. The “explainlikeimten” answer is “There is no water shortage. It’s a Clean Cheap Local Water, shortage.”

The long answer is that there is the same amount of water on this planet as when the dinosaurs were in charge. The problem is that the clean water that can be consumed straight from the pipe is no longer located where it was when industries were created to direct that water to homes and businesses. A lot of water was connected to aquifers (especially farms, this is where a LOT of water was taken so that farmers would have cheap if not free water), and once you take that water out of the aquifers, it takes a LONG time to refill those aquifers and that time is measured in centuries or even millenniums.

The real reasons you hear about conserving water, etc., is that the water companies don’t want to reuse water. It costs a lot of money to clean water to a level that it is safe to consume, especially at the specific level that is required by U.S. regulations. It also costs a lot of money to build things like pipes, etc. to transfer water from where it IS available to locations where it ISN’T available. And then it also costs a lot of money to build reservoirs for storing water in areas that don’t already have reservoirs. So these companies rather spend money advertising/forcing water conservation, as pretending this will help is a lot cheaper than actually doing what WOULD actually help.

Already too long of a post, so just to close up, take a look at Israel and Saudi Arabia. Both countries have a horrible “available” water problem, and yet they have solved it by technologies including salt-water distillation and pipes/reservoirs. Do not let the water companies in the U.S. fool you in believing that water conservation is the answer.