How Do We Use Water?
Water is the essential ingredient for many aspects of daily life,
from personal use to agricultural, industrial, and commercial needs.
The amount of water used is usually defined in terms of withdrawal—in
other words, water that is collected from the Earth's surface or
extracted from ground water.
There are four major categories of water users in the United States:
- Domestic: Water used for residential, commercial,
industrial, and public uses such as street cleaning, fire fighting,
municipal parks, and public swimming pools. This includes both
publicly supplied sources (water delivered by a public or private
system) and self-supplied sources (water withdrawn directly from
surface or ground water, such as from privately owned wells).
Fifteen percent of American households are self-supplied, while
more than 240 million people depend on public supply systems.
Withdrawals for public supply systems total more than 43 billion
gallons per day. Historically, nearly 60 percent of the public
supply is delivered to households. Self-supplied water to households
totals nearly 4 billion gallons per day.
- Power Plants: Water used during the production
of energy from fossil fuels, nuclear, or geothermal sources. Most
water withdrawn for power plants is used for cooling purposes;
power plants use 136 billion gallons of fresh water per day.
- Agricultural: Water used to irrigate farm crops
and for livestock, dairies, feedlots, fish farms, and other farm
needs. Agricultural irrigation accounts for more than 142 billion
gallons of fresh water per day.
- Industrial & Mining: Water used for cooling
in factories and washing and rinsing in manufacturing processes.
Some of the major water-use industries include mining, steel,
paper, and associated products, as well as chemicals and associated
products. Industrial facilities withdraw more than 20 billion
gallons of fresh water per day.
Back to Using and Saving Water in the United
States
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