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> One acre-foot, about 326,000 gallons (1.23 million liters), is enough water to supply one or two households for a year. This is mind-blowing. Is this true? E

> One acre-foot, about 326,000 gallons (1.23 million liters), is enough water to supply one or two households for a year. This is mind-blowing. Is this true? Each house in American (roughly) uses this much water? I assume it's certainly not an issue in, say, Ohio where my monthly water bill I think has never exceeded $25 - but there's just no way this is sustainable in places out west prone to drought, right? Am I over-appreciating this seemingly large number? > "We are never going to see these reservoirs filled again in our lifetime," said Denielle Perry, a professor at Northern Arizona University's School of Earth and Sustainability.

cesaref 5y ago
That does seem like an astonishingly high number, but I guess there is quite a range of water requirements across the country. To put this in context, it's 10x the water we use in our house in the UK, and I don't think we're particularly low in our water usage (we work out to be around 300 litres a day).
snarkerson 5y ago
That is in terms of electrical power generation by hydroelectric dams.
BeefWellington 5y ago
According to my water company I used about 67,300 gallons of water the past year, which is about 300,000 L. It's not out of the ballpark.
foobarian 5y ago
Be a bit aggressive and assume the number is 365,000 gallons - that means 1000 gallons per day. Statistics from a perfunctory Google search seem to indicate around 300 gal/day/household, so it seems about right if a bit on the high side.
gernb 5y ago
I thought it meant 1 acre-foot provides enough electricity at the dam for 2 households for 1 year?
- ericmay 5y ago
  You might be right, though I'd still say that seems like a lot of water...
bumbledraven 5y ago
https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/family-home-consumer/water-conservation-in-and-around-the-home-9-952/ https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/family-home-cons... : Water supply planners estimate that a typical household needs 0.4 -0.5 acre feet of water per year (approximately 150,000 gal) to satisfy the demands of a home and landscape.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I have to believe that a lot of that is the landscape part. I admittedly live by myself but if I do the math right, it looks like I use about 3,000 gallons a year--virtually none of which is used outside the house.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    3,000 gallons a year comes out to 8.2 gallons per day. Seems a bit low. Even a low flow toilet uses 1.1-1.6 gallons per flush. In my experience, with a family of 4, a lawned landscape is gonna take up about 50-70% of your water use in SoCal. This is based upon living in a couple of places down here. Also, pools are a giant red herring. A noncovered pool would take up about 5% of that above water budget. Once you cover it it consumes basically no water (once filled). Note that drought tolerant grasses use upwards of 60% less water than standard lawns. And subsurface irrigation uses upwards of 70% less water. Still not a good idea to have tons of the stuff, but if you want a small patch of it you can do so without blowing the water budget. Most people don't do this though.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I'm usually at my town $50 minimum and my last quarterly bill was for 100 cu.ft. So 3,000 gallons a year. I would say that of course I'm not there all the time--and pre-COVID I travelled a lot--but not true at the moment. I did grow up in a house with a poor water supply from a well so I probably have a lot of habits related to not running water unnecessarily. I agree it seems low but that's what the numbers say. (And, as I say, this is mostly just one person.) I live in New England and haven't watered my lawn since it was established and rarely water gardens. Even if things can get a bit brown during the summer, they come back.
chemeng 5y ago
I think average US household water usage is around 250-500 gallons per day. So 326k gal per year for 2 households isn’t that far off.
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  250 gallons a day? Where would someone use that much water? Are they filling their tub 10 times a day?
nickphx 5y ago
Homes are but a drop in the bucket for water consumption when compared with agricultural use.. Many states still use flood irrigation to water crops.
driverdan 5y ago
People use far more water than they should and water is much cheaper than it should be. $25 in water could very well be this much, you'd have to check your bill to see what volume you use.
- brewdad 5y ago
  My town charges $3 per CCF (748 gallons). The biggest challenge to getting residents to alter their usage is that that number gets lost amongst all of the fixed charges. If I turned off my meter for a month, I'd still face $85 in fixed charges. My lowest water bill of the past year was $91 and the highest was $106. Typical bill is $94. The water usage rates are pretty much noise for all but the poorest families.
ch4s3 5y ago
The average American uses about 29,930 gallons of water per year[1]. The figure of 326,000 gallons is enough for 3 families of four people. However, water usage varies wildly in the US by region and housing type. [1] https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  That's 82 gallons per day. Or 372 liters. Quite a lot. A standard (inefficient) US toilet uses 1.28 gallons every time you flush it. Lets assume you have four people per household maybe using the toilet about 6 times per day, each. That's almost 30 gallons right there. The average shower takes about 15 gallons. So times four that's 60 gallons right there. Adds up to 80 gallons already. That's before you turn on the washing machine, the dishwasher, watering the lawn, making tea, etc. 82 sounds about right but also very wasteful. The question of course is could the US do better? And why would it? As it turns out, a lot of places treat water like an almost free commodity. Hence the complete disregard for toilet and shower inefficiencies. If people would pay for it by the gallon at a reasonable amount, they'd fix it. But they aren't. Say you'd price it a 10 cents per gallon. A 15 gallon shower now costs you 1.50$. Maybe you'd install some water saving shower head and shower bit less long. The actual price is closer to a 1000 gallons for that price. Hence the average American not giving a shit when they flush the toilet, take a shower, etc. Water isn't cheap to source anymore. Especially if you live in a desert. Taking water from unsustainable sources has the downside that those sources run out eventually. Especially if they are not being replenished naturally anymore. That's what is happening in a lot of places. Water isn't scarce though. Our planet is covered in it. All we need to do is separate it from salt (and our waste) and we can have as much as we want of it. But it comes at a price.
  - ryantgtg 5y ago
    I checked our water bill yesterday (Los Angeles), and found we average well over 82 gallons a day. I'm trying to figure out why. Household of 3, no lawns, lots of succulents (a couple fruit trees but we're not crazy about watering). So our water use is largely: daily shower, dishwasher, toilet, sink, washing machine, and reverse osmosis water faucet. We had a crappy tankless water heater for a few years, so I actually removed the water saving shower faucets and sink aerators. I got a new tankless, so now I want to put back on the water saving faucets and see how that impacts results. But... I was surprised. I could definitely shorten my showers.
lost953 5y ago
That's ~900 Gal/Day which sounds pretty high for 1 or 2 households but I suppose if they are large and have large lawns or something it could be reasonable. I would naively think it is closer to 5 to 10 households.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rtkwe 5y ago
If you take the US average of 138 gallons per day and take that out to a year 1 acre-foot is about 6.5 households but out west you probably get more water usage for lawns and things like cooling which is more likely to use swamp coolers than the rest of the US so it's possible. [0] 138 gallons per day is a little over 190k L/yr https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=138+gallons+per+day+to+liters+per+year https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=138+gallons+per+day+to+... edit: 138 figure from here. Just took the google knowledge box answer: https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/indoor-water-use-at-home/ https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/indoor-water-use-a...
- francisofascii 5y ago
  So ironically, water usage is higher per household where water is more scarce.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    That's just my guess at the difference. It could also be a figure including other things like the per household usage for hydro-electric power like some other people have guessed in this thread. That would fit with the other mentions of losing hydro-electric power if the lake level were to fall too low.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> One acre-foot These units seem to be deliberately obtuse.
- conqueso 5y ago
  I think it's a perfect descriptor - makes me picture an acre of land (footprint) with a height of 1 ft
- macksd 5y ago
  I've mostly heard it used by farmers. And it makes sense if you're thinking of the equivalent rainfall measured in inches on a property measured in acres.
- Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
  ca 1200 cubic meters
com2kid 5y ago
> Ohio where my monthly water bill I think has never exceeded $25 My sewer bill in Seattle is over $120. That isn't for water, that is just the price of getting the water out of my house! (My water bill is half that, go figure!) This was winter/spring, so just this is just laundry, showering, and doing dishes.
mhh__ 5y ago
In general American houses seem to use enormous amounts of basically everything.
thedougd 5y ago
I had a city issued smart water meter at my last residence with 5-6 residents. I set a text message alert at 400 gallons per day, as that was a very unusual event that might warrant attention. I had high efficiency showers, toilets, and washers. I only ever hit it, and well exceeded it, when I did something like water the lawn a few times a year. A high watermark estimate (har har) would be 400 x 365 = 146000. I suppose two households is plausible, but I'd guess more like three to four for 326000. Where I live, in a very wet part of ther United States, water is still too expensive for watering the lawn regularly. This is usually because the meter reading is used to assess charges for sewer as well. Those who do have irrigation systems request second meters to avoid sewer charges or even tap into the gray water supply.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The fact that decorative lawns exist at all is indicative of water not being expensive enough. Edit: By decorative, I mean the manicured lawns that are only for aesthetics that require tons of watering and sprinkler systems, and pesticides/insecticides/fertilizers.
  - sidewndr46 5y ago
    Aren't all lawns decorative?
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      There is value in tick control around a residence. For that, grass is the most practical ground cover. Anything beyond the bare minimum is an excess.
      - sidewndr46 5y ago
        Wouldn't dirt, sand, or rocks work just fine?
        recursive 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

cesaref 5y ago

That does seem like an astonishingly high number, but I guess there is quite a range of water requirements across the country. To put this in context, it's 10x the water we use in our house in the UK, and I don't think we're particularly low in our water usage (we work out to be around 300 litres a day).

snarkerson 5y ago

That is in terms of electrical power generation by hydroelectric dams.

BeefWellington 5y ago

According to my water company I used about 67,300 gallons of water the past year, which is about 300,000 L. It's not out of the ballpark.

foobarian 5y ago

Be a bit aggressive and assume the number is 365,000 gallons - that means 1000 gallons per day. Statistics from a perfunctory Google search seem to indicate around 300 gal/day/household, so it seems about right if a bit on the high side.

gernb 5y ago

I thought it meant 1 acre-foot provides enough electricity at the dam for 2 households for 1 year?

ericmay 5y ago
You might be right, though I'd still say that seems like a lot of water...

bumbledraven 5y ago

https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/family-home-consumer/water-conservation-in-and-around-the-home-9-952/ https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/family-home-cons... : Water supply planners estimate that a typical household needs 0.4 -0.5 acre feet of water per year (approximately 150,000 gal) to satisfy the demands of a home and landscape.

ghaff 5y ago
I have to believe that a lot of that is the landscape part. I admittedly live by myself but if I do the math right, it looks like I use about 3,000 gallons a year--virtually none of which is used outside the house.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  3,000 gallons a year comes out to 8.2 gallons per day. Seems a bit low. Even a low flow toilet uses 1.1-1.6 gallons per flush. In my experience, with a family of 4, a lawned landscape is gonna take up about 50-70% of your water use in SoCal. This is based upon living in a couple of places down here. Also, pools are a giant red herring. A noncovered pool would take up about 5% of that above water budget. Once you cover it it consumes basically no water (once filled). Note that drought tolerant grasses use upwards of 60% less water than standard lawns. And subsurface irrigation uses upwards of 70% less water. Still not a good idea to have tons of the stuff, but if you want a small patch of it you can do so without blowing the water budget. Most people don't do this though.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I'm usually at my town $50 minimum and my last quarterly bill was for 100 cu.ft. So 3,000 gallons a year. I would say that of course I'm not there all the time--and pre-COVID I travelled a lot--but not true at the moment. I did grow up in a house with a poor water supply from a well so I probably have a lot of habits related to not running water unnecessarily. I agree it seems low but that's what the numbers say. (And, as I say, this is mostly just one person.) I live in New England and haven't watered my lawn since it was established and rarely water gardens. Even if things can get a bit brown during the summer, they come back.

chemeng 5y ago

I think average US household water usage is around 250-500 gallons per day. So 326k gal per year for 2 households isn’t that far off.

sidewndr46 5y ago
250 gallons a day? Where would someone use that much water? Are they filling their tub 10 times a day?

nickphx 5y ago

Homes are but a drop in the bucket for water consumption when compared with agricultural use.. Many states still use flood irrigation to water crops.

driverdan 5y ago

People use far more water than they should and water is much cheaper than it should be. $25 in water could very well be this much, you'd have to check your bill to see what volume you use.

brewdad 5y ago
My town charges $3 per CCF (748 gallons). The biggest challenge to getting residents to alter their usage is that that number gets lost amongst all of the fixed charges. If I turned off my meter for a month, I'd still face $85 in fixed charges. My lowest water bill of the past year was $91 and the highest was $106. Typical bill is $94. The water usage rates are pretty much noise for all but the poorest families.

ch4s3 5y ago

The average American uses about 29,930 gallons of water per year[1]. The figure of 326,000 gallons is enough for 3 families of four people. However, water usage varies wildly in the US by region and housing type. [1] https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts.

jillesvangurp 5y ago
That's 82 gallons per day. Or 372 liters. Quite a lot. A standard (inefficient) US toilet uses 1.28 gallons every time you flush it. Lets assume you have four people per household maybe using the toilet about 6 times per day, each. That's almost 30 gallons right there. The average shower takes about 15 gallons. So times four that's 60 gallons right there. Adds up to 80 gallons already. That's before you turn on the washing machine, the dishwasher, watering the lawn, making tea, etc. 82 sounds about right but also very wasteful. The question of course is could the US do better? And why would it? As it turns out, a lot of places treat water like an almost free commodity. Hence the complete disregard for toilet and shower inefficiencies. If people would pay for it by the gallon at a reasonable amount, they'd fix it. But they aren't. Say you'd price it a 10 cents per gallon. A 15 gallon shower now costs you 1.50$. Maybe you'd install some water saving shower head and shower bit less long. The actual price is closer to a 1000 gallons for that price. Hence the average American not giving a shit when they flush the toilet, take a shower, etc. Water isn't cheap to source anymore. Especially if you live in a desert. Taking water from unsustainable sources has the downside that those sources run out eventually. Especially if they are not being replenished naturally anymore. That's what is happening in a lot of places. Water isn't scarce though. Our planet is covered in it. All we need to do is separate it from salt (and our waste) and we can have as much as we want of it. But it comes at a price.
- ryantgtg 5y ago
  I checked our water bill yesterday (Los Angeles), and found we average well over 82 gallons a day. I'm trying to figure out why. Household of 3, no lawns, lots of succulents (a couple fruit trees but we're not crazy about watering). So our water use is largely: daily shower, dishwasher, toilet, sink, washing machine, and reverse osmosis water faucet. We had a crappy tankless water heater for a few years, so I actually removed the water saving shower faucets and sink aerators. I got a new tankless, so now I want to put back on the water saving faucets and see how that impacts results. But... I was surprised. I could definitely shorten my showers.

lost953 5y ago

That's ~900 Gal/Day which sounds pretty high for 1 or 2 households but I suppose if they are large and have large lawns or something it could be reasonable. I would naively think it is closer to 5 to 10 households.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rtkwe 5y ago

If you take the US average of 138 gallons per day and take that out to a year 1 acre-foot is about 6.5 households but out west you probably get more water usage for lawns and things like cooling which is more likely to use swamp coolers than the rest of the US so it's possible. [0] 138 gallons per day is a little over 190k L/yr https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=138+gallons+per+day+to+liters+per+year https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=138+gallons+per+day+to+... edit: 138 figure from here. Just took the google knowledge box answer: https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/indoor-water-use-at-home/ https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/indoor-water-use-a...

francisofascii 5y ago
So ironically, water usage is higher per household where water is more scarce.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  That's just my guess at the difference. It could also be a figure including other things like the per household usage for hydro-electric power like some other people have guessed in this thread. That would fit with the other mentions of losing hydro-electric power if the lake level were to fall too low.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> One acre-foot These units seem to be deliberately obtuse.

conqueso 5y ago
I think it's a perfect descriptor - makes me picture an acre of land (footprint) with a height of 1 ft
macksd 5y ago
I've mostly heard it used by farmers. And it makes sense if you're thinking of the equivalent rainfall measured in inches on a property measured in acres.
Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
ca 1200 cubic meters

com2kid 5y ago

> Ohio where my monthly water bill I think has never exceeded $25 My sewer bill in Seattle is over $120. That isn't for water, that is just the price of getting the water out of my house! (My water bill is half that, go figure!) This was winter/spring, so just this is just laundry, showering, and doing dishes.

mhh__ 5y ago

In general American houses seem to use enormous amounts of basically everything.

thedougd 5y ago

I had a city issued smart water meter at my last residence with 5-6 residents. I set a text message alert at 400 gallons per day, as that was a very unusual event that might warrant attention. I had high efficiency showers, toilets, and washers. I only ever hit it, and well exceeded it, when I did something like water the lawn a few times a year. A high watermark estimate (har har) would be 400 x 365 = 146000. I suppose two households is plausible, but I'd guess more like three to four for 326000. Where I live, in a very wet part of ther United States, water is still too expensive for watering the lawn regularly. This is usually because the meter reading is used to assess charges for sewer as well. Those who do have irrigation systems request second meters to avoid sewer charges or even tap into the gray water supply.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The fact that decorative lawns exist at all is indicative of water not being expensive enough. Edit: By decorative, I mean the manicured lawns that are only for aesthetics that require tons of watering and sprinkler systems, and pesticides/insecticides/fertilizers.
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  Aren't all lawns decorative?
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    There is value in tick control around a residence. For that, grass is the most practical ground cover. Anything beyond the bare minimum is an excess.
    - sidewndr46 5y ago
      Wouldn't dirt, sand, or rocks work just fine?
      - recursive 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]