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

You are not being asked to conserve water, because the water cycle means that for the most part water is never lost across the whole planet.

You are being asked to conserve purified, drinkable water. That’s a very small fraction of the water on the planet, and it’s quite expensive to take the water we have lots of (salt water in the ocean) and turn it into drinkable water.