Which of the following three is the leading use of water in the U.S. 1. Agriculture, 2.domestic use 3.industry

Question

Which of the following three is the leading use of water in the U.S. 1. Agriculture, 2.domestic use 3.industry

Answer 1

domestic use

Answer 2

agriculture!!!

Answer 3

industrial

Answer 4

Beside Agriculture, water flowing down rivers to the oceans would be second. Agricultural land receives most of the rainfall, and whether we think of agriculture as using or collecting that water, it is landing on agricultural land, and a lot of it evaporates from that land or enters the air via transpiration.

If water drains off agricultural land into the river, do we subtract that from the agricultural usage?  It is not a self evident question.

Answer 5

Agriculture

Answer 6

Fresh ground-water withdrawals from 66 principal aquifers in the United States were estimated for irrigation, public-supply, and self-supplied industrial water uses for the year 2000. Total ground-water withdrawals were 76,500 million gallons per day, or 85,800 thousand acre-feet per year for these three uses. Irrigation used the largest amount of ground water, 56,900 million gallons per day, followed by public supply with 16,000 million gallons per day, and self-supplied industrial with 3,570 million gallons per day. These three water uses represented 92 percent of the fresh ground-water withdrawals for all uses in the United States.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/circ1268/...

Answer 7

I'm a farmer.  I live in the very heartland of potato country in Idaho.   This is high mountain desert here.

We know a LOT about water usage around here, because most families income comes from agriculture, and this is a desert area.  

Agriculture by FAR uses the most water.

Industry is second.

Domestic (household) use is a DISTANT third.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years