Does Water Usage and Conservation Really Matter? Yes. Here’s Why
PART 1- This is a two part article
Water is everywhere, right? You use water when you turn on the faucet to wash your hands, to use the restroom, wash your clothes, and of course, you drink it. Water seems like an abundant, never-ending supply, right?
Unfortunately, that’s not true. In fact, is pretty far from the truth. Water is a limited resource, and even though it seems like you’re surrounded by it, only about 1 percent of water on earth is available for human use.
That’s because the rest of the water is either salt water in the oceans, frozen into polar ice caps, or is inaccessible for us to practically use. This should dramatically shift the way you look at the water. Not everyone has the same access to water, which means that you and your community should understand the way water usage affects you, those around you, and even those around the globe.
In this article, we’ll take a look at water usage, help you understand how countries use water, and discuss the details of water conservation.
Water is a precious resource, but it’s difficult to understand that until you get the global picture. That’s what this article is all about.
“A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure.” – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
Water, as you’d imagine, plays a huge role in our everyday life. There are the obvious uses for water, of course, some of which we discussed above — drinking water, washing water, bathroom water — but think a bit deeper.
What about how your city uses water? Without water, there’d be no fire-fighting, no municipal parks, no swimming pools, or sewage systems. Now consider all the other uses for water, like:
Mining
Irrigation
Thermoelectric power
Industrial uses
Aquaculture
Livestock
That’s a lot of water being used every day.
Now, consider that the thousands of cities around the world using water in the same way. We’re talking billions of liters per day.
However, all that water isn’t spread around equally. Water usage changes drastically depending on the country, city, or town you’re looking at. For example, let’s first look at the United States as a big picture. In 2010, the United States used about 1,343,821 million liters of water per day or about 397,000 thousand-acre-feet per year.
These are massive numbers and it’s hard to grasp their significance until we compare them to other countries. Hang in there.
Now let’s zero in on now on the average American family. This average family uses about 1136 liters of water per day at home, with about 70 percent of this water being used indoors. About 24 percent of that water is for flushing the toilet, 20 percent is showering, 19 percent is from the faucet, 17 percent is for washing clothing, 12 percent is due to leaks in the pipe systems, and about 8 percent for other, miscellaneous uses.
To put that in perspective, it takes anywhere from 13 – 26 liters of water to flush a toilet. That’s a lot of water.
In fact, the average American uses almost 600 liters of water per day on themselves.
Now let’s step back see how much water other countries use in comparison to the United States.
In Australia, the country with the second-highest water usage rates, the average person uses about 470 liters of water every day. Following that:
The average person in Italy uses about 390 liters per day,
The average person in Japan uses 375 liters per day
The average in Mexico is 360 liters per day
The average in Spain is 325 liters per day
The average in Norway is 300 liters per day
The average in Austria is 230 liters, respectively
Contrast this to developing nations like Mozambique, Uganda, Rwanda, Haiti, and Ethiopia, use about 2 to 15 liters of water per day, per person.
Are you starting to get the picture? Developed countries use an incredible amount of water compared to developing countries. The disparity is staggering.
