– If water is constantly recycled, why are we concerned about conservation?
In: Planetary Science
Many parts of the world don’t have a whole lot of water. Where I live, water is abundant, I am less than a mile from a large river and about 2 miles from an absolutely massive lake. It’s easy to drill a well here if you don’t live in town. For many parts of the world it’s the opposite, there’s little to no water on the surface and you have to drill extremely deep to find water underground.
California is a good example of the consequences of using too much water. Lake mead is the primary source of water for California and neighboring southwestern states, this lake is at about 20% capacity versus what it was 100 years ago. It did rise a little bit last year but it’s on track to go dry in the near future. This is largely because the river that feeds it is likewise going dry caused by overuse of water and warmer winters leading to less snow pack in the mountains so there’s less snow to melt in the spring and feed the lake.
CA also taps into natural underground aquifers and has pumped so much water out that a lot of them have collapsed. When they collapse, they cannot refill to their old capacity and it’s not some thing you can fix, they are several hundred feet down. This can cause the land to sink up to 20 feet.
A lot of wasted water results from farming in place is not suitable for farming like the American Southwest. Not only that farmers are growing crops that require a lot of water like almonds or alfalfa. Growing crops in hot desert like environments means, you have to water crops even more because the harder it is the more water evaporates, it’s one massive feedback loop.
So yes water is not destroyed when we use it. But the water cycle doesn’t necessarily deposit that used water right back where it was.
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