Economics of Competition for Water

Abstract

"Each day something like 300 billion gallons of fresh water is withdrawn for use in homes, factories, businesses, or on irrigated farmland. These quantities are withdrawn from water courses, kept in circulation sometimes for several cycles of re-use, and then either returned to a water course, which may be a ground water aquifer, or depleted into the atmosphere. Some water is, of course, embodied in the products of manufacture. There is both immensity and great diversity in the uses we make of the water we withdrawn from our lakes, streams and underground aquifers."