Amount Of Water In The World....Part 2?

Question

From the answers to my previous question it appears to be true that there is the same amount of water on the Earth today that there has always been. It just goes round and round in a cycle...so why do we need to save water ? What difference does it make if we have a bath and wash the car and hose the garden or even drink vast amounts of the stuff as it will come back anyway ? Fair enough the distribution over the earth may not be right at certain times of the year in various drought zones but if I allow water to return to the Earth here when it is the wet season am I not helping the dry regions by allowing the water to get back into the Worlds Water Cycle?

Answer 1

because it takes a h**l of alot of energy to push all that water around a country, you ever carried bath full of water up the stairs? well there are pumps that do that... its just eco freaks hoping that every little will help, if they are bothered about saving the earth they should commit suicide: then theyd save a whole persons worth of energy and lwere carbon emmision.

Answer 2

Only 1% of the water in the world is drinkable the rest is sea water.

The 1% left is badly managed and that's where the problem is! It's not distributed properly, it's redirected to crop lands leaving rivers dry at the end, and it's also being polluted without care!

Answer 3

The first answer is pretty much correct. It is really about energy not water. It is also about economy. If you pay (or your parents or the govt on your behalf) for the water in your bath or shower then using more will cost more. Now fresh water in any one place and time is limited, and governments store it in dams for lean (dry ) times and individuals do the same in rain water tanks. So as it is limited in and one place and time and you use it all up at that time, you may have to go without. Until it next rains perhaps. So if you use your self collected rain water and your tank is over flowing and you waste the excess that you cant store, no harm done. But if your tak is not full and you are trying to fill it but instead start using more water than you need, you may fingd yourself very thirsty during the dry season. People who manage their own water supplies know this very well. They use their water wisely. People who live in cities often have no idea where their city's water comes from. Usually it is from a very limited source. If the city's dams run dry, well that would be more than just embarrassing. You might be quite dead by the time the rains refill your dam.  Moving water from one area to another takes energy unless its all down hill. (even then there is the pipline to build or channel to dig). So its a costly exercise to move large quantities of water around.

I live in a capital city in the tropics so there is plenty of water in the wet saeson, but little in the dry. When the dry lasts longer than it should the dams start to dry up. We start to worry. But even in the wet, the water company can't supply enough treated water (clorinated and filtered) for the city so we often go short. So we have storage tanks and rain water tanks to tide us over the times of shortage. As a result we understand that while there may be lots of water, its not always where we want it or when we want it, or of the quality we like. (when you open the tap and a murky smelly stream comes out you will understand the last one.). It costs money and energy to move water, to store water and to make it fit for consumption. some one has to pay for it. It doesn't make sense to waste it.

At times and places there are limits to the water available, so there can be very severe shortages if you live in one of those times or places.