[google is very unhelpful, it’s broken now. I can’t find any posts explaining the specific thing I want to know]
Was asked this question by a friend.
When we say that producing one item of clothing uses x amount of water. She doesn’t see the harm because the water used to grow cotton doesn’t disappear “it’s part of the cycle”.
Pollution must be a factor right? There is a difference between drinking water, saltwater and contaminated water? (Surely they’re not using clean drinking water for production?)
Exasperated by the fact that production is usually performed in areas with poor regulation/infrastructure.
(Is it inherently damaging, or damaging because of how it’s performed?)
Is the water “used” because it becomes vapor? Is it used because the molecules are taken apart? Either way shouldn’t this technically be reversible?
[I am not very articulate, and I find it very difficult to organize my thoughts to words. This question ended up frustratingly inprecise!]
Edit: thanks for the good responses:)
In: Biology
It’s not about water use per se, it’s more about water *diversion*.
In the natural hydrologic cycle, water evaporates from the oceans, falls as rain, pools into rivers and lakes, and then drains back into the ocean again. This is basic elementary school science. But most modern farming/ranching techniques require active irrigation to water our crops and animals. We also build massive cities that are distant from the rivers and lakes where we traditionally used to build them, so we dredge canals and dam up reservoirs for drinking water and to produce some the electricity we depend on.
All this activity diverts water from its natural course, and much of it gets discharged into the ground near where it’s used instead of the source it was taken from. It can then take centuries or even millennia to return to the ocean.
In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a problem. All things being equal, the oceans will continue to evaporate and the rain will continue to fall. But the amount of that water that makes it into lakes and rivers is reduced, and that has effects on the downstream ecosystems that depend on those water cycles that existed naturally before we started diverting it. Additionally, minerals that normally wash into those rivers and lakes upstream are less dilute downstream, which can raise their concentrations to levels that are harmful to flora and fauna that require them to be in a certain balance.
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