how have we not run out of freshwater yet?

Question

I wonder about this a lot. Billions of people drinking, showering, running dishwasher, flushing toilet. How the heck do we have enough freshwater to sustain this for so long?

In: 0

Answer 1

Specifically, about 14 million gallons of precipitation falls on the earth every year *per person*! A lot of that is inaccessible, falling over oceans or whatnot, and a lot we want to leave to nature. But you might need a couple hundred thousand at most, and that’s accounting for agriculture on your behalf, so hopefully that gives you a sense of the scale that nature provides.