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Depends what you mean by "sustainable". There's far more fresh water falling on the US than is being "used". Go look at any river. Gazillions of litres of fres
by hugh4 11y ago
Depends what you mean by "sustainable".
There's far more fresh water falling on the US than is being "used". Go look at any river. Gazillions of litres of fresh water per minute just flowing out to sea and getting salty. Then imagine the number of rivers doing that.
Of course damming every river and diverting it to other uses is impractical and would have bad effects on various ecosystems, but there's a lot of spare fresh water just running out to sea.
And then remember that the vast majority of the water that we "use" is not getting split into hydrogen and oxygen, it's staying molecular water and it's hanging around.
- jofer 11y agoThe problem is spatial distribution, not amounts. Saying we have far more than is being used is true, but misses the forest for the trees. Some areas have lots of water resources, some don't. Unfortunately our water usage is almost inversely correlated to water resource availability. Arid soils are _incredibly_ productive when irrigated, so we grow a lot of crops in the desert (or semi-desert). Also, people like to live in dry, sunny places. Dry, sunny places usually don't have abundant water resources.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]