Timeline for How is it possible to use up the water in a region?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 10, 2019 at 7:06 | vote | accept | Joshua Fox | ||
| Jan 9, 2019 at 10:22 | comment | added | Chris H | @JoshuaFox household use includes things like watering gardens and washing cars, that lead to a lot of evaporation - and as has already been said this evaporation is transported further than your question assumes | |
| Jan 9, 2019 at 6:20 | comment | added | Johnny | @MasonWheeler - Nestle's San Bernadino plant bottles around 60M gallons of water a year, which sounds like a lot, but LA consumes around 78 gallons of water a day per person, so that's around the same amount of water used by 2000 residents. Water used for human consumption (even when bottled) is just a tiny fraction of overall water usage. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 23:21 | comment | added | CramerTV | @JoshuaFox, much of the waste water in orange county where I live is actually pumped into the ground to maintain the local water table and prevent the ocean's salt water from contaminating the ground. accuweather.com/en/weather-news/… | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 20:20 | comment | added | Mason Wheeler | For California specifically, a massive amount of water has been literally removed over the past few decades by beverage companies (Nestlé being a major offender) pumping it out of the ground and transporting it away to be mixed into their products and sold elsewhere. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 19:25 | comment | added | Joshua Fox | @CramerTV I don't understand "diverting them for household usage". Again, every molecule of water that enters those houses also leaves them. I guess you could say that sewer-water goes directly to the sea without re-entering the water supply, but I am not even sure that that is true. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 18:06 | comment | added | Eric Lippert | All five of the Great Lakes (and their surrounding basins) are surely many hundreds of km from the nearest ocean, but their outflow is literally the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls. You presume that rain falls "within a few hundred km" of where it evaporates. Where then do you presume a volume of water enough to run Niagara falls continuously comes from? As you note, it must come from somewhere. Where does it come from? | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 17:23 | comment | added | CramerTV | Southern California is a huge non-agriculture consumer of water. One of the reasons rivers in California are 'shrinking' is due to diverting them for household use. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 16:29 | answer | added | Acccumulation | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 15:45 | comment | added | Joshua Fox | @Fred You are right, but the water in the fruit is a tiny fraction of the water that is used in making the fruit. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 15:43 | comment | added | Chris H | @OscarBravo actually even dry cotton contains some water - or rather the cellulose that makes up the cotton is made from water+CO2 | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 14:27 | comment | added | Flater | @OscarBravo: The water is no longer in the resulting pair of jeans. But the fruits and meat still contain water, which does get transported. You are correct that even more water is used to make the fruits and meat (just like for cotton), but Fred was focusing on the water that is still in the fruit and meat at the time it is exported. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 13:57 | comment | added | Oscar Bravo | @Fred I think you're talking about virtual water? This is the idea that agricultural irrigation is lost from the local system. One example I recall is that the cotton required for a single pair of jeans requires about 1000 $m^3$ of irrigation! However, this water isn't physically removed by exporting the goods. Rather, it is lost by evaporation during the life-cycle of the crop plant and is circulated away by the atmosphere. As others have mentioned, it doesn't precipitate back down anywhere near. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 13:25 | comment | added | Fred | In addition the what has been stated in the answers, water gets exported out of a region as moisture in produce. Water melon, cucumber or any fruit or vegetable, even meat from livestock is sent to consumers in other parts of the country & around the world via agricultural trade. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 12:53 | answer | added | Nemesi | timeline score: 16 | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 12:28 | history | edited | Joshua Fox | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 | history | edited | Joshua Fox | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 8, 2019 at 11:42 | answer | added | gerrit♦ | timeline score: 14 | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 10:35 | review | First posts | |||
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| Jan 8, 2019 at 10:33 | history | asked | Joshua Fox | CC BY-SA 4.0 |