Comment by kurthr
2 hours ago
You do realize that agriculture uses 80% of the (mostly free) developed and deliverable water, while urban cities use about 10%?
That's true of basically all of the West and the Colorado River, too.
2 hours ago
You do realize that agriculture uses 80% of the (mostly free) developed and deliverable water, while urban cities use about 10%?
That's true of basically all of the West and the Colorado River, too.
Sure do! But people die in a few days without potable water, crops are usually more drought resistant.
And yes, I do get the point that if you suggested we build $6B desalination plants to grow lettuce people would balk and say, "That's not worth the money!". We should use less water on crops.
It's bad but one thing not often pointed out in this conversation is that about 50% of water used in irrigation for agriculture returns as groundwater. In most other cases, used water ends up in sewers or evaporating
50% of 10% is still only 5%.