From Water Wiki

Water and life are inseparable; nothing is more basic to life. We are each over half water. We can live only about eighty hours without taking in fresh water. Over seventy percent of the Earth is covered by ocean, yet only 2.5% of the water on Earth is fresh water--water we can easily use. And most of this fresh water is stored in glaciers. The global amount of fresh water stored in rivers and reservoirs is tiny.

This same mass of water is the water that has always been on Earth, and that always will be. The water cycle is thus a very fundamental fact of life; however, as with everything, the legal, policy and bureaucratic categories for water don't perfectly integrate with the natural water cycle. Is this finite amount of water enough to support humans and the lifestyles we want? In the Anthropocene era, that very much depends on how we manage it.

Contents 1 Water shortages 2 Water categories 3 Water Supply 4 Water Demand

Water shortages

There is a great deal of concern that water shortages will become more and more frequent and severe in many regions of the United States and the world in the rest of the 21st century. Here, for example, is an analysis done under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Interior of "hot spots" in the western United States where severe water shortages are likely by 2025.

Water categories

Despite Heraclitus' claim that "fresh waters are flowing in upon you" always, water is water, the same water; it changes form much more often than it is created or destroyed. What we create is not new water, but new categories of water in its different forms and phases. These are important legal and bureaucratic divisions of the water cycle

• stormwater
• diffuse surface water
• navigable water
• "live" or "wet" water
• groundwater
• springs
• wetlands
• tidal waters
• public trust waters
• watersheds
• river basins
• waters of the state
• waters of the United States
• drinking water
• unaccounted for water
• gray water
• green water
• blue water

Water Supply

• Precipitation
  • Skimming high flows
• Reservoirs
• Groundwater
• Desalination
• Saltwater intrusion and subsidence

Water Demand

• Geographic Region (ie. United States, states, and specifically North Carolina)

•NC Water sectors

• Aquaculture
• Energy use
• Ecological flows
• Industry
• Institutional
• Irrigation
• Livestock
  
• Light Commercial
• Mining
• Recreation
• Residential
• Consumptive vs. Non-consumptive

Future water demand:

• Estimates of future use in NC - Many factors, such as population growth, economic trends, legal decisions, and periodic droughts, affect projections of water usage.