Where is the worlds water going, are we running out.?

Question

The Greens, Water Boards and Government say we are.

Answer 1

We are simply using more. The idea is to use it wisely. There is plenty of water, but most of it isn't potable.

Answer 2

It's going to many different uses by humans. I suppose technically it's possible for the world to "run out" of water bodies since the water cycle is a closed system (unless you count the water coming to the earth with comets) but the water would still be there in some way, in plants, animals etc... i don't think we'll ever have to worry about an earth without some water.

Answer 3

These are the facts...ten percent of our per annum water drops in from outer space, so we may use up our per annum alottment, but actually run out, no. Also, even though California, Australia and parts of Africa are under continual drought threat and/or conditions, there are many ways to rectify this. Canada is chock full of lakes and rivers and glaciers, enough to supply North America for at least a few more years without serious shortages. Of course eventually, probably a sooner rather than later eventually, we will have to face severe restrictions, but that has to do with our procreation rates more than to do with a lack of water. What we really need is a good disease or two and a pretty big war to cull the human herd to numbers that won't threaten our food and water supplies. Or else stop having children. I can't wait till they get this cloning thing happening, then we'll be able to clone water.

Answer 4

We are running out of potable water. There are several reasons:

1) There are a lot more people now so there is a lot more demand for drinkable water.

2) Each person is starting to consume a lot more water, with daily showers, flush toilets, cloths washing etc. As developing nations modernize per capita water consumption grows very considerably.

3) Modern technology consumes a lot of water, here I am focusing particularly on industrial water consumers. The paper industry is an example of a industry that uses a tremendous amount of water.

4) Humans are changing rainfall and water runoff patterns resulting in less available water, mostly by cutting down forrests and paving over huge areas of land.

5) Much of the water used in some parts of the world are from ancient groundwater sources that are only slowly replenished but are being pumped very fast resulting in rapidly diminishing stores. This is a big problem for much of the Midwestern an southwestern USA.

6) People decide to live in arid areas with little natural water resource resulting the water shortages. Los Vegas, Phoenix, LA all come to mind.

7) Especially in third world countries poor sanitation or industrial pollution is contaminating what supplies of water do exist.

8) Lingering effects of mining all over the world contaminate water supplies. Again this is a very big problem for the western USA. Mines leach out acids, mercury and other heavy metal contaminants and contaminate both surface and ground water supplies.

9) Development and draining of wetland areas world wide has greatly diminished natural systems ability to purify water. Wetlands are the primary way the contaminated surface waters are purified.

10) In some cases destruction of water supplies has been used as a weapon of war. Saddam drained swamps in southern Iraq for instance to punish the Swamp Arabs.

11) Farming uses a great deal of water, we are farming in more arid areas, which uses much more irrigation.

I am sure I have overlooked a number of other important effects.

Answer 5

The total amount of water on earth is constant - it is a closed system. Therefore water is neither lost nor gained.
However, water may be falling in the form of rain or snow elsewhere on the planet rather than your specific location, so to you,it seems that there is less of it.
Think that with global warming, sea levels will rise (polar ice melting) but seasonal "norms" fall - at the same time, there may be flooding in say Bangladesh because of unseasonably heavy monsoons. The quantity of water stays the same, it is just shared across the earth differently.
Does that make sense?
It is estimated that the current losses of water due to leaking water authority pipes each day, per UK household = 170 litres of water.No wonder it feels like we are running out.

Answer 6

Certain parts of the country have less water because the water boards are not fixing pipes quick enough when they get cracks in them and the water is being allowed to escape. Also some of the public are not reporting serious problems like a burst water main.

Answer 7

No, the world is not running out of water. What is happening is mankind is polluting the environment and the water at such a rapid pace that it is getting extremely difficult to find water pure enough to drink without it being treated in some way. Then, most treatments can't take all of the heavy metals and/or toxins out of it. The water you're getting from your faucet is about as pure as you can get unless you're luck enough to live in an area where there are natural deep-water springs as I do. The water from the springs we use is about 5,000 years old, meaning that it was in the ground 3,000 years before Jesus walked on it. It's so pure that NASA used it to protect the moon rocks brought back from the moon, to keep them in as pristine a condition as possible for later study.

Answer 8

Rivers are made from rainfalls, underground rivers and from icemeltiing in montains.

Changing weather, rain falls are more than earth can absorb, then we have floods and less water into underground reserves.
With icemelting and warmer winters, there will be less snow and rivers will have its cycle changed with less water.

Ancient underground deposits have been depleted by platations, irrigation and so on. Irrigation are consuming water from rivers and cities are under pressure, because they took water from these rivers.

More warmer days can put rain in other place, like in middle of the ocean and water will not reach continent.

We will have a lot of water wit salt, but like the abundant poluted water provided by the cities, it will be treated and it costs....

Its a simple frase, full of true, but that require deep understanding about economics, agronomy, weather, H²O Cycle. to be cracked into many possibilities. I give only the simpliest ones.

Answer 9

3 % of all the worlds water is sweet ,
75 % of that is locked in ice .Glaziers ,the poles ,ice caps
and a lot of this is now melting and running in to the sea to become salt water,.check what is happening to the ice caps

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AmkP.xcPM1ziPMsGq0TDFSLsy6IX?qid=20060714025323AAZ7007

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aog6tzBhK90INOp59OIMm3zsy6IX?qid=20060715103818AA0USh5

Each year we are getting 70 million more people that are consuming water,
farmers are over pumping aquifers ,many replaceable surface aquifers are now dry and they are pumping deep carbon aquifers ,with technology for drilling for oil.
the problem is that these water supplies will not be replaced,
agriculture will work as long as irrigation is working .the moment it stops .everything dies and turns to dessert because there is no natural ground water nearby
that before would keep shade trees alive during times of no irrigation.

the use of water is a bankrupt philosophy we are using water we don't really have

this is not even taking into account the vast amounts of river water that is contaminated beyond Human usage.
already millions of farmers have lost everything because their world has become dessert(northen China)to produce one ton of maize needs one thousand tons of water.

the Chineese will pay anything for maize or what the maize represents for them in terms of water.

and governments will become unstable ,and already people are fighting over water,
this can become water wars in the future

and we will be up to our necks in water from the rising seas ,but it is the wrong water.

Answer 10

We can't run out of WATER, per se. We can run out of CLEAN, FRESH water. As supplies of fresh water get tainted or redirected, you have water shortages. As areas with shortages expand, you get a large and large water crisis. Earth has VAST amounts of water, more than we could ever launch into space (which would be the only way to get rid of it.)

Answer 11

Water will never run out because the water cycle will always continue, no matter what.