Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2003.

28:275–314
doi: 10.1146/annurev.energy.28.040202.122849
Copyright °c 2003 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
First published online as a Review in Advance on July 30, 2003

WATER USE
Peter H. Gleick
Pacific Institute, 654 13th Street, Oakland, California 94612;
email: [email protected]
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Key Words water consumption, withdrawal, scenarios, freshwater, conservation,

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water-use efficiency, water productivity

■ Abstract Water managers and planners are slowly beginning to change their
perspective and perceptions about how best to meet human needs for water; they are
shifting from a focus on building supply infrastructure to improving their understanding
of how water is used and how those uses can best be met. This review discusses
definitions of water use, explores the history of water use around the world and in
characteristic regions, identifies problems with collecting and analyzing water data, and
addresses the question of improving water-use efficiency and productivity in different
regions and economic sectors. There is growing interest on the part of water managers
around the world to implement these approaches to lessen pressures on increasingly
scarce water resources, reduce the adverse ecological effects of human withdrawals of
water, and improve long-term sustainable water use.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Needs Versus Wants for Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Definitions of Water Use, Conservation, and Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
HOW IS WATER USED? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Data Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
ESTIMATES OF CURRENT WATER USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Global Water Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Regional Water Use: National Water-Use Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Experience from the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
FORECASTING WATER USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WATER USE AND HUMAN
WELL-BEING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
CHANGING WATER-USE PATTERNS: THE POTENTIAL FOR
IMPROVING WATER-USE EFFICIENCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Cost-Effectiveness of Efficiency Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Urban Improvements: The Example of California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

1543-5938/03/1121-0275$14.00 275
 276 GLEICK

INTRODUCTION

The history of human civilization is entangled with the history of the ways hu-
mans have learned to manipulate and use fresh water. The earliest agricultural
communities depended on the vagaries of natural rainfall and runoff. Engineering
advances came with simple dams and irrigation canals that permitted greater crop
production and longer growing seasons. The expansion of urban areas eventually
required the development of sophisticated piping and aqueducts, to bring water
to users, and of innovative systems to remove wastes, some of which were put in
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place thousands of years ago (1, 2).

During the industrial revolution and population explosion of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, the demand for water rose dramatically. Unprecedented
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construction of tens of thousands of monumental engineering projects designed

to control floods, protect clean water supplies, and provide water for irrigation
or hydropower brought great benefits to hundreds of millions of people. Thanks
to improved sewer systems, water-related diseases such as cholera and typhoid,
once endemic throughout the world, have largely been conquered in the more
industrialized nations. Huge cities survive on water brought from hundreds and
even thousands of kilometers away. Food production to meet the needs of more than
six billion people is now largely dependent on artificial irrigation systems. Nearly
one fifth of all of the electricity generated worldwide is produced by hydroelectric
turbines. Even today, $30 to $40 billion are spent annually on new dams (3).
A wide variety of forces, however, are driving a shift away from the construction
of new water infrastructure. Most important is the improved understanding of the
true economic, social, and environmental costs of that infrastructure. As a result,
water planners and managers are on the verge of a fundamental change in thinking
about water—a change from a focus on new construction to a focus on evaluating
how best to meet human needs and desires. New water facilities are still needed
in many parts of the world, and the existing infrastructure must be maintained in
order to keep the flow of benefits coming. But those responsible for water are now
beginning to pay far more attention to the other side of the equation—how society
uses water.
Most water planners throughout the world are not trained to think about water
use in a systematic way. Definitions are used inconsistently and incorrectly. Fore-
casts of water use are made with inappropriate and irregular assumptions. And
both water experts and policy makers often misunderstand the role of water use in
water policy. New approaches to water planning and management are beginning
to address issues of use directly, which lead to changes in management and to im-
provements in long-term sustainable water use. This review discusses definitions
of water use, explores the history of water use around the world and in charac-
teristic regions, identifies problems with collecting and analyzing water data, and
addresses the question of improving the efficiency and productivity of water use
in different regions and economic sectors.
 WATER USE 277

Needs Versus Wants for Water

A shift in emphasis is underway away from evaluating broad demands for water
to a better understanding of water needs and uses. Discussion of the differences
between needs and wants has recently appeared in the resource literature (4).
People need only basic amounts of water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and
hygiene to maintain human well-being (5). Rather, people seek water for goods
and services, such as the production of food and industrial items, transportation,
communications, and the elimination of wastes. In addition, people want goods
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and services beyond their basic needs; some of the wanted items are recreation,
leisure, and luxury goods. Providing these needs and wants can be accomplished
in many ways, which depend on technology, prices, cultural traditions, and other
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factors, often with radically different implications for water.

Traditional approaches to meeting water needs have focused on how to de-
sign, fund, and build water-supply systems; these range from dams and aqueducts
to water treatment and distribution facilities. Water-supply systems have brought
great benefits to water users by improving the reliability of supply, reducing water-
related diseases associated with poor water quality, and buffering the impacts of
extreme hydrologic events such as floods and droughts. They have also brought
great costs, which include ecological and environmental degradation, social dis-
ruption associated with infrastructure construction, and economic problems.
An alternative approach, dubbed the “soft” path, also relies on centralized in-
frastructure but complements it with investment in decentralized facilities, efficient
technologies, and human capital (6–8). It strives to improve the overall productiv-
ity of water use rather than seek endless sources of new supply. It delivers diverse
water services matched to the users’ needs and works with water users at local and
community scales.
A good example of the difference between needs and wants can be seen in
approaches for disposing of human wastes. Waste disposal does not require any
water, although using some amount of water for this purpose may be appropriate
or culturally preferred. In many parts of the world, human wastes are disposed
of safely without any water at all (except for modest amounts for hygiene and
washing). In industrial nations, however, we have grown accustomed to flush
toilets. Indeed, toilet flushing is usually the largest indoor residential use of water
in richer nations. Yet even here, substantial improvements in technology in the past
two decades have led to a 75% decrease in water used by toilets in the United States,
and even greater improvements are achieved in toilets used widely in Australia,
Japan, and Europe. All toilets manufactured in Australia are now dual-flush systems
using either six liters or three liters per flush (9).
Many traditional approaches can also be used to manage human wastes without
any water, and new technology can do this even in wealthier countries accustomed
to traditional flush systems. At the high end, electrically mixed, heated, and ven-
tilated composting toilets, which have no odors or insect problems, are available
(10). These devices safely and effectively biodegrade human wastes into water,
 278 GLEICK

carbon dioxide, and a soil-like residue that can be used as compost. Although they
can use substantial amounts of electricity, they can displace an equal or greater
amount of electricity currently used to deliver water and treat wastewater.
Similarly, farmers do not want to use water, per se; they want to grow crops
profitably and sustainably. Manufacturers are not interested in using water but
in producing goods. Soft-path water planners would therefore argue that farmers
and manufacturers are likely to implement any water-conserving technologies that
make practical, economic, and social sense while permitting them to meet their
needs. Comparable examples of technologies and practices that permit us to meet
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our needs and wants with less and less water can be found in every sector of society
(11).
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Definitions of Water Use, Conservation, and Efficiency

There is considerable confusion in the water literature about the terms use, need,
withdrawal, demand, consumption, and consumptive use. Great care should be
used when interpreting or comparing different studies or assumptions about water
use. The term water use, while common, can mean many different things, referring
at times to consumptive use and at times to withdrawals of water.
Withdrawal usually refers to water removed from a source and used for human
needs. Some of this water may be returned to the original source with changes in
the quantity and quality of the water, but some may be used consumptively. The
term consumptive use or consumption typically refers to water withdrawn from a
source and made unavailable for reuse in the same basin, such as through conver-
sion to steam, losses to evaporation, seepage to a saline sink, or contamination.
Consumptive use is sometimes referred to as irretrievable or irrecoverable loss
(12). Thus a power plant may withdraw substantial amounts of water for cooling
from a river but use that water in a way that permits it to be returned directly to the
river, perhaps a bit warmer, for use by the next downstream user. A farmer may
withdraw the same amount of water for irrigation, but the vast majority of it may
be used consumptively by plants and become unavailable for any other activity.
Need for water is also a subjective term, but typically it refers to the minimum
amount of water required to satisfy a particular purpose or requirement. It also
sometimes refers to the desire for water on the part of a water user. Demand for
water is an economic concept often used to describe the amount of water requested
or required by a user (13). The level of demand for water may have no relationship
to the minimum amount of water required to satisfy a particular requirement. Water
demand to flush a toilet can range from six gallons in an old, inefficient U.S. toilet,
to 1.6 gallons in a model that meets current U.S. standards, to zero gallons in
an efficient composting toilet. What is actually being demanded is not a specific
amount of water but the service of reliably and safely removing wastes.
A considerable number of other confusing terms have appeared in the water
literature in the past few years. Among them are terms used to describe the kinds of
water that might be saved by changes in technology and water policies, including
 WATER USE 279

real water, paper water, and new water. Some of these distinctions have been
valuable in identifying where and when conservation is most beneficial and have
allowed planners to focus on the improvements in water-use efficiency that are the
most appropriate and valuable (14–17). Some of these distinctions, however, have
been misleading or have misrepresented the value of efficiency improvements.
As noted above, consumptive uses of water prevent water from being reused
in a watershed or system. Efforts to reduce consumptive uses clearly save real,
physical water that can be made available to other users. But some planners are
confused about the value of nonconsumptive uses of water: uses that permit later
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reuse.
The California Department of Water Resources (CDWR), for example, miscal-
culated the value of water-use efficiency efforts to reduce nonconsumptive uses
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in water plans prepared in the 1990s. The CDWR argued that upstream reduc-
tions in nonconsumptive use are paper water, i.e., they do not produce new water
(by which they mean additions to supply), and hence do not help satisfy water
demands (18, 19). Under this line of thought, Sacramento, an inland city, would
not benefit from efforts to install residential water meters or retrofit houses with
low-flow showerheads or efficient toilets because water used inefficiently (but
nonconsumptively) in Sacramento is already being used by downstream users.
While no new water would be produced in this case, the water savings from
efficiency improvements in Sacramento would nevertheless be a real reduction
in demand that displaces the need for new supplies, because they would permit
new customers and new demands in Sacramento to be satisfied without expanding
capacity or infrastructure. Moreover, such reductions in demand would reduce the
need to take water out of local rivers and aquifers, improve water quality and en-
vironmental values downstream of Sacramento, and provide enhanced recreation,
fishing, tourism, and other benefits. This misunderstanding led state water planners
to ignore or underemphasize improvements in urban water-use efficiency in inland
regions. That, in turn, led to a potential overestimate of future increases in urban
demand in California in 2020 by more than a billion cubic meters, which could
in turn lead policy makers to commit major financial resources to unnecessary
new supply projects (19). As will be described later, water forecasts leading to
overestimates of future water needs are common.
Similarly, water accounts for the Nile River indicate that only 20%–30% of
irrigation water diverted from the Nile is evaporated or transpired by crops (15).
The remainder is return water typically reused downstream. Some have claimed
that upstream reductions in nonconsumptive use are relatively unimportant because
water loss is not the same as water waste (20). Of course this is strictly correct:
Irrigation return flows are not wasted if they are used downstream. But upstream
conservation efforts have other benefits: They would allow a larger upstream area
to be irrigated, improve the navigability of the Nile, or as in the California example,
improve water quality for downstream natural systems or users.
Related to problems of defining water use is the challenge of defining how to
improve that use. The terms conservation, efficiency, and productivity are often
 280 GLEICK

used interchangeably to get across the idea of doing more with less. Used most
generally, the term water conservation simply refers to reducing water use by any
amount or any means, which may include applying new technology, improving
old technology, and instituting behavioral changes.
Baumann et al. more explicitly defined water conservation as any socially ben-
eficial reduction in water use or water loss. This definition suggests that efficiency
measures should, in addition to reducing water use per unit of activity, make sense
economically and socially (21). This leads to economically efficient outcomes,
taking into account all costs, by pushing forward with conservation up to the point
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where the incremental cost of demand reduction is the same as the incremental
cost of supply augmentation. The advantage of this definition is that it focuses
on comprehensive demand and supply management with the goal of increasing
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overall well-being per unit of water used.

Water-use efficiency is a more precise measure of water conservation: how much
water is actually used for a specific purpose compared to the minimum amount
necessary to satisfy that purpose. Under this definition, the theoretical maximum
water-use efficiency occurs when society actually uses the minimum amount of
water necessary to do something. In reality, however, this theoretical maximum
efficiency is rarely, if ever, achieved because the technology is not available or
commercialized, because the economic cost is too high, or because societal or
cultural preferences rule out particular approaches.
Finally, the concept of water productivity is useful in discussions about water
use. Water productivity usually refers to the amount of measurable output per unit
of water that is used. The units of output can be physical (e.g., tons of wheat) or
economic (e.g., the dollar value of the good or service produced). Hence, the term
water productivity is a comprehensive way to combine the ideas of doing more
with less water.

HOW IS WATER USED?

Water is used for many different purposes throughout our economies and natural
ecosystems. Agriculture is the largest consumer of water used by humans world-
wide. Most observers put total consumptive use of water worldwide for irrigated
agriculture at nearly 85% of total human consumptive use. This water is vital for
the production of food. In 2000, around 270 million hectares of land were irrigated
worldwide, which is 18% of total cropland (22). Around 40% of all agricultural
production comes from these irrigated areas. As a result, evaluations of water use
must pay particular attention to this sector.
Water is used by agriculture for a number of critical services. Water is necessary
for growing biota, for maintaining temperature balances within plants, for leaching
salts and other minerals away from the root zone, and more. Water diverted for
agriculture is depleted by transpiration of the plants, by evaporation from soil and
free water surfaces, and by deep percolation to groundwater. Some of this water can
be considered to be used beneficially while a portion is lost to nonbeneficial uses.
 WATER USE 281

In urban or residential settings, water is used for a wide range of daily activities,
which include cooking, cleaning and bathing, small-scale irrigation for gardens
or municipal landscapes, waste disposal, and commercial and industrial activities.
Almost all forms of production of goods and services require water. Sometimes
water is actually embodied in the production of a good, such as water used to can
fruits and vegetables or to make beverages. Other times, water is simply used to
clean, cool, or operate machinery. A substantial fraction of total water withdrawals
in some industrialized nations is used for the production of energy, either directly
in hydroelectric plants or indirectly for power plant cooling. Most of this water
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is not used consumptively. In the United States, 47% of total water withdrawals
went to power plant cooling. In Europe, 32% went for these purposes (23–25).
Finally, there is a whole series of water uses by natural ecosystems that are
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almost always ignored in surveys or assessments of water use. Many of these en-
vironmental uses of water are not directly human uses, although they nonetheless
contribute to maintaining the ability of natural ecosystems to provide certain kinds
of goods and services critical for human well-being. While there are no satisfactory
standards for how to account for this kind of water use, it is receiving growing
attention in the water-use field. Indeed, the government of South Africa has for-
mally acknowledged, the need to maintain basic water flows for the environment
in its post-apartheid water laws (26).

Data Problems
Compounding problems with definitions of water use are serious problems with
data. Data on water use are collected around the world to support scientific re-
search, facilitate the operation of water-supply systems, and improve water-policy
decisions. The types of data collected, the frequency and accuracy of collection,
and the availability vary widely from place to place. Compared with data on the
hydrologic cycle, such as rainfall, runoff, and temperature, data on water use are
inadequate and incomplete, and pressures are growing to cut back collection for
financial reasons (27, 28). Several serious problems hinder water-use analyses:

SYSTEMATIC COLLECTION OF WATER-USE DATA IS RARE Far fewer data are col-
lected on water use than on water supply and availability. Domestic water use
is often not measured directly, and details on how that water is used are rarely
collected. Data on surface water are collected more frequently than data on the use
or condition of groundwater. Data on urban water uses are more readily available
than data on rural and agricultural uses, but even details of industrial and com-
mercial water uses are inventoried infrequently or not at all. Even when water-use
data are collected, information on changing water-use patterns over time is often
not available; this makes analysis of trends difficult.

SOME WATER USES OR NEEDS ARE UNQUANTIFIED OR UNQUANTIFIABLE Some

water uses and needs have never been adequately catalogued; others are unlikely
 282 GLEICK

ever to be accurately determined. For example, ecological needs, recreational uses,

water for hydropower production or navigation, and reservoir losses to seepage or
evaporation are often difficult to calculate with any accuracy. Information on total
withdrawals is reported more frequently than information on consumptive uses.
But water may be withdrawn once and then used several times in a process; so
data on withdrawals may be an inadequate measure of overall use or need. These
kinds of water-use distinctions and activities must be measured if effective water
management is to be done.
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THEREARESERIOUS GLOBALAND REGIONALDISPARITIES IN COLLECTION Although

water-use data are usually more reliably and consistently collected in the indus-
trialized nations, some regions have few or no programs in place to survey water
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uses. There are also regional disparities in the scope and quality of water-use data
collection within countries, and even in wealthier countries, programs to evaluate
water use are often the first victims of budget cuts during fiscal crises.

MANY DATA ARE INACCURATE Even when data are collected, inaccurate measure-
ment and reporting are common. As mentioned above, confusion over definitions
of withdrawals, consumption, and reuse make some comparisons difficult. It is
difficult to determine water use when no meters or measuring devices are in place.
And determining specific uses often requires estimates based on indirect factors,
such as climate, typical crop characteristics, or assumptions about the performance
of water-use technology. For example, showerheads that are designed to flow at a
rate of 2.5 gallons per minute (the current U.S. standard) may actually flow at rates
above or below this standard because of local differences in pipe pressure. Crops
estimated to evapotranspire a certain amount of water may use more or less than
that because of differing soil conditions, temperatures, or even local wind regimes.

ESTIMATES OF CURRENT WATER USE

As described above, collecting and reporting water-use data entail enormous chal-
lenges due to problems with the quality of data and differing definitions and stan-
dards for measurement. Because of these difficulties, estimates of current water
use at the national or global level must only be considered approximations, even in
the best of circumstances. Nevertheless, a number of comprehensive assessments
have been done in an effort to get a broader picture of critical water concerns. Most
global studies typically consist of separate regional or sectoral evaluations con-
flated to provide a global view. In this section, several global and regional water-use
estimates are reviewed, and an overview of water use by major sectors is presented.

Global Water Use

Many factors determine water-use levels around the world: the extent and form of
socioeconomic development, population size, climatic conditions, and the physi-
cal nature of a region. Various assessments have been made of global water use,
 WATER USE 283

typically by combining regional analyses that take these different factors into ac-
count. Shiklomanov and a group of researchers at the State Hydrologic Institute
(SHI) of St. Petersburg have produced one of the most comprehensive and recent
assessments. In this analysis, total water withdrawals and consumption were es-
timated for urban needs (domestic water consumption), industrial use (including
power generation), irrigated agriculture, and evaporation losses from reservoir sur-
faces. Estimates were made for various periods, including 1900, 1940, 1950, 1960,
1970, 1980, 1990, and 1995 (12, 29).
The SHI estimated water use for approximately 150 countries, and the data
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were then generalized for larger economic regions and summed by continents.
Preference was given to using actual reported data from individual countries or
groups of countries, but when actual data were not available, estimates were derived
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by using information on reported economic activity using assumptions about the

water implications of different activities or by drawing analogies with countries
with similar physiographic and economic conditions.
Table 1 shows Shiklomanov’s (29) estimates of both water withdrawals and
consumption (reported as irrecoverable losses) by continental regions for decades
from 1900 to the mid-1990s. As might be expected, water uses around the world
are very uneven, both spatially and temporally. The data also indicate the quite
strong and dramatic increases in total fresh water withdrawals and consumption in
the twentieth century, which led to the widespread construction of large water sys-
tems. According to these estimates, water withdrawals in 1995 totaled 3765 cubic

TABLE 1 Water withdrawal and consumption estimates and projections in cubic kilometers
(29)
Historical estimates of use Forecasted use
Continent 1900 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1995 2000 2010 2025

Europe 37.5a 71 93.8 185 294 445 491 511 534 578 619
17.6b 29.8 38.4 53.9 81.8 158 183 187 191 202 217
North America 70 221 286 410 555 677 652 685 705 744 786
29.2 83.8 104 138 181 221 221 238 243 255 269
Africa 41.0 49.0 56.0 86.0 116 168 199 215 230 270 331
34.0 39.0 44.0 66.0 88.0 129 151 160 169 190 216
Asia 414 689 860 1222 1499 1784 2067 2157 2245 2483 3104
322 528 654 932 1116 1324 1529 1565 1603 1721 1971
South America 15.2 27.7 59.4 68.5 85.2 111 152 166 180 213 257
11.3 20.6 41.7 44.4 57.8 71.0 91.4 97.7 104 112 122
Australia & Oceania 1.6 6.8 10.3 17.4 23.3 29.4 28.5 30.5 32.6 35.6 39.6
0.6 3.4 5.1 9.0 11.9 14.6 16.4 17.6 18.9 21 23.1
Total (rounded)c 579 1065 1366 1989 2573 3214 3590 3765 3927 4324 5137
415 704 887 1243 1536 1918 2192 2265 2329 2501 2818
a
Underlined numbers show water withdrawal.
b
Italic numbers show water consumption.
c
Includes about 270 cubic kilometers in water losses from reservoirs for 2025.
 284 GLEICK

kilometers annually, compared with 579 cubic kilometers in 1900. Consumptive

uses in 1995 were estimated at 2265 cubic kilometers, up from 415 km3 in 1900. Use
in North America and Europe accounted for 19% of total estimated withdrawals at
the beginning of the twentieth century. By 1995, withdrawals in North America and
Europe had increased to 30% of the total, which reflects increased industrialization.
From a practical point of view, however, absolute measures of water use are
sometimes less valuable than comparing water use with water availability, which
can give a better sense of how close a region may be to stress or scarcity. For
example, total water withdrawals at the end of the twentieth century comprised as
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much as 15% to 17% of total renewable water availability in Europe and Asia, but
only 1% to 2% of availability in South America and Oceania. On an even finer
regional scale, current water withdrawals are already as much as 24% to 30% of
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total supply in parts of southern and central Europe; at the same time in the northern
part of the continent, there are regions where these values never exceed 3%. In
Canada, water withdrawals are only about 1% of total water resources. Just to the
south, the United States uses as much as 28% of total availability, and there are
watersheds in the United States where water use approaches or even occasionally
exceeds total regional water availability (due to unsustainable overdraft of local
groundwater resources to supplement renewable supplies).
A slightly different approach to estimating water use at the global scale was
taken by Postel et al. (30). In their analysis, they estimate the portion of the Earth’s
renewable water resources accessible to humans and the portion of this supply
now being used. They use the estimates of Shiklomanov to calculate municipal
uses and add water required for agricultural production and instream flows for
human needs such as waste dilution, navigation, recreation, and environmental
uses. Overall, Postel et al. (30) estimate that withdrawals from rivers, streams,
and aquifers combined with instream flow requirements already total 6780 cubic
kilometers per year and that these uses account for 54% of total accessible runoff.

Regional Water Use: National Water-Use Estimates

Data on water use by countries and by different economic sectors are among the
most sought-after and unreliable in the water resources area. In recent years, more
concerted and consistent efforts to collect and report national water-use estimates
have been made by national water agencies and by the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) (31–34). The recent FAO reports cover most coun-
tries of Africa, the Near East, the former Soviet Union, Asia, Latin America, and
the Caribbean. New, consistent estimates on use have yet to be done for Europe and
North America, though national estimates from these regions are done on a more
regular basis by those countries themselves. Within each of the continental reports,
some of the national water-use data are still incomplete or grossly outdated. For
Africa, for example, some of the data are more than 30 years old.
The most up-to-date national data on water use are reviewed and summarized
every two years in the biennial book The World’s Water. These data are reproduced
here from the most recent volume (see Table 2) (35). This table shows total
 WATER USE 285

TABLE 2 Freshwater withdrawal, by country and sectora

Total
freshwater Per capita Domestic Industrial Agricultural
Region and withdrawal withdrawal use use use
country Year (km3/yr) (m3/p/yr)b (%) (%) (%)

Africa
Algeria 1990 4.50 142 25 15 60
Angola 1987 0.48 38 14 10 76
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Benin 1994 0.15 23 23 10 67

Botswana 1992 0.11 70 32 20 48
Burkina Faso 1992 0.38 31 19 0 81
Burundi 1987 0.10 14 36 0 64
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Cameroon 1987 0.40 26 46 19 35

Cape Verde 1990 0.03 59 10 19 88
Central African 1987 0.07 19 21 5 74
Republic
Chad 1987 0.18 25 16 2 82
Comoros 1987 0.01 14 48 5 47
Congo 1987 0.04 13 62 27 11
Congo, Democratic 1990 0.36 7 61 16 23
Republic of
(formerly Zaire)
Cote D’Ivoire 1987 0.71 47 22 11 67
Djibouti 1985 0.01 11 13 0 87
Egypt 1993 55.10 809 6 8 86
Equatorial Guinea 1987 0.01 22 81 13 6
Ethiopia 1987 2.20 31 11 3 86
(and Eritrea)
Gabon 1987 0.06 49 72 22 6
Gambia 1982 0.02 16 7 2 91
Ghana 1970 0.30 15 35 13 52
Guinea 1987 0.74 94 10 3 87
Guinea-Bissau 1991 0.02 14 60 4 36
Kenya 1990 2.05 68 20 4 76
Lesotho 1987 0.05 22 22 22 56
Liberia 1987 0.13 40 27 13 60
Libya 1994 4.60 720 11 2 87
Madagascar 1984 16.30 937 1 0 99
Malawi 1994 0.94 85 10 3 86
Mali 1987 1.36 108 2 1 97
Mauritania 1985 1.63 632 6 2 92
Mauritius 1995 0.62 522 18 8 75
Morocco 1991 11.05 381 5 3 92
Mozambique 1992 0.61 31 9 2 89
Namibia 1991 0.249 144 29 3 68
Niger 1988 0.50 46 16 2 82

(Continued )
 286 GLEICK

TABLE 2 (Continued )

Total
freshwater Per capita Domestic Industrial Agricultural
Region and withdrawal withdrawal use use use
country Year (km3/yr) (m3/p/yr)b (%) (%) (%)

Nigeria 1987 3.63 28 31 15 54

Rwanda 1993 0.77 100 5 2 94
Senegal 1987 1.36 143 5 3 92
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Sierra Leone 1987 0.37 76 7 4 89

Somalia 1987 0.81 70 3 0 97
South Africa 1990 13.31 288 17 11 72
Sudan 1995 17.80 597 4 1 94
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Swaziland 1980 0.66 667 2 2 96

Tanzania 1994 1.17 35 9 2 89
Togo 1987 0.09 19 62 13 26
Tunisia 1990 3.08 313 9 3 89
Uganda 1970 0.20 9 32 8 60
Zambia 1994 1.71 187 16 7 77
Zimbabwe 1987 1.22 98 14 7 79
North and Central America
Antigua and 1990 0.005 75 60 20 20
Barbuda
Barbados 1996 0.08 312 77 0 23
Belize 1993 0.095 396 12 88 0
Canada 1990 43.89 1431 11 80 8
Costa Rica 1997 5.77 1520 13 7 80
Cuba 1995 5.21 465 49 0 51
Dominica 1996 0.02 239 0 0 100
Dominican 1994 8.34 982 11 0 89
Republic
El Salvador 1992 0.73 115 34 20 46
Guatemala 1992 1.16 95 9 17 74
Haiti 1991 0.98 125 5 1 94
Honduras 1992 1.52 234 4 5 91
Jamaica 1993 0.90 348 15 7 77
Mexico 1998 77.81 787 17 5 78
Nicaragua 1998 1.29 274 14 2 84
Panama 1990 1.64 575 28 2 70
St. Lucia 1997 0.01 89 100 0 0
St. Vincent and 1995 0.01 88 100 0 0
the Grenadines
Trinidad and 1997 0.30 221 68 26 6
Tobago
United States 1995 469.00 1688 12 46 42
of America

(Continued )
 WATER USE 287

TABLE 2 (Continued )

Total
freshwater Per capita Domestic Industrial Agricultural
Region and withdrawal withdrawal use use use
country Year (km3/yr) (m3/p/yr)b (%) (%) (%)

South America
Argentina 1995 28.58 772 16 9 75
Bolivia 1987 1.21 145 10 3 87
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Brazil 1992 54.87 324 21 18 61

Chile 1987 20.29 1334 5 11 84
Colombia 1996 8.94 230 59 4 37
Ecuador 1997 16.99 1343 12 6 82
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Guyana 1992 1.46 1670 1 0 99

Paraguay 1987 0.43 78 15 7 78
Peru 1992 18.97 739 7 7 86
Suriname 1987 0.46 1018 6 5 89
Uruguay 1965 0.65 199 6 3 91
Venezuela 1970 4.10 170 44 10 46
Asia
Afghanistan 1991 26.11 1020 1 0 99
Bahrain 1991 0.24 387 39 4 56
Bangladesh 1990 14.64 114 12 2 86
Bhutan 1987 0.02 10 36 10 54
Brunei 1994 0.92 2788 — — —
Cambodia 1987 0.52 46 5 1 94
China 2000 549.76 431 11 21 69
Cyprus 1993 0.21 267 7 2 91
India 1990 500.00 497 5 3 92
Indonesia 1990 74.35 350 6 1 93
Iran 1993 70.03 916 6 2 92
Iraq 1990 42.80 1852 3 5 92
Israel 1990 1.70 280 16 5 79
Japan 1992 91.40 723 19 17 64
Jordan 1993 0.98 155 22 3 75
Korea, Democratic 1987 14.16 592 11 16 73
People’s Republic
Korea Republic 1994 23.67 505 26 11 63
Kuwait 1994 0.54 274 37 2 60
Laos 1987 0.99 174 8 10 82
Lebanon 1994 1.29 393 28 4 68
Malaysia 1995 12.73 571 10 13 77
Maldives 1987 0.003 10 98 2 0
Mongolia 1993 0.43 157 20 27 53
Myanmar 1987 3.96 80 7 3 90
Nepal 1994 28.95 1189 1 0 99
Oman 1991 1.22 450 5 2 94
(Continued )
 288 GLEICK

TABLE 2 (Continued )

Total
freshwater Per capita Domestic Industrial Agricultural
Region and withdrawal withdrawal use use use
country Year (km3/yr) (m3/p/yr)b (%) (%) (%)

Pakistan 1991 155.60 997 2 2 97

Philippines 1995 55.42 739 8 4 88
Qatar 1994 0.28 476 23 3 74
Saudi Arabia 1992 17.02 786 9 1 90
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Singapore 1975 0.19 53 45 51 4

Sri Lanka 1990 9.77 519 2 2 96
Syria 1993 14.41 894 4 2 94
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Thailand 1990 33.13 548 5 4 91

Turkey 1992 31.60 481 16 11 72
United Arab 1995 2.11 863 24 9 67
Emirates
Vietnam 1990 54.33 674 4 10 86
Yemen 1990 2.93 162 7 1 92
Europe
Albania 1970 0.20 57 6 18 76
Austria 1991 2.52 304 19 73 8
Belgium 1990 9.00 877 11 85 4
Bulgaria 1988 13.90 1673 3 75 22
Czech Republic 1991 2.74 269 23 68 9
Denmark 1995 1.00 190 30 27 43
Finland 1994 2.43 469 12 85 3
France 1994 34.88 591 16 69 15
Germany 1990 58.85 712 14 68 18
Greece 1990 6.00 566 8 29 63
Hungary 1991 6.81 694 9 55 36
Iceland 1994 0.16 567 31 63 6
Ireland 1990 1.20 336 16 74 10
Italy 1990 56.20 983 14 27 59
Luxembourg 1994 0.06 133 42 45 13
Malta 1995 0.06 147 87 1 12
Netherlands 1991 7.80 491 5 61 34
Norway 1985 2.03 461 20 72 8
Poland 1991 12.28 317 16 60 24
Portugal 1990 7.29 745 15 37 48
Romania 1994 26.00 1155 8 33 59
Slovak Republic 1991 1.78 331 — — —
Spain 1994 33.30 837 12 26 62
Sweden 1994 2.96 333 36 55 9
Switzerland 1994 2.60 351 23 73 4
United Kingdom 1994 11.75 201 20 77 3
Yugoslaviac 1980 8.77 368 16 72 12

(Continued )
 WATER USE 289

TABLE 2 (Continued )

Total
freshwater Per capita Domestic Industrial Agricultural
Region and withdrawal withdrawal use use use
country Year (km3/yr) (m3/p/yr)b (%) (%) (%)

Former Soviet Union

Armenia 1994 2.93 800 30 4 66
Azerbaijan 1995 16.53 2112 5 25 70
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Belarus 1990 2.73 265 22 43 35

Estonia 1995 0.16 113 56 39 5
Georgia 1990 3.47 640 21 20 59
Kazakhstan 1993 33.67 1989 2 17 81
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Kyrgyz Republic 1994 10.09 2221 3 3 94

Latvia 1994 0.29 121 55 32 13
Lithuania 1995 0.25 68 81 16 3
Moldova 1992 2.96 664 9 65 26
Russian Federation 1994 77.10 527 19 62 20
Tajikistan 1994 11.87 1855 3 4 92
Turkmenistan 1994 23.78 5309 1 1 98
Ukraine 1992 25.99 512 18 52 30
Uzbekistan 1994 58.05 2320 4 2 94
Oceania
Australia 1995 17.80 945 15 10 75
Fiji 1987 0.03 35 20 20 60
New Zealand 1991 2.00 532 46 10 44
Papua New Guinea 1987 0.10 21 29 22 49
Solomon Islands 1987 — — 40 20 40
a
See (35) for details on original data. Figures may not add to totals due to independent rounding.
b
Per capita figures calculated using 2000 population numbers: medium UN variant.
c
Includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Croatia.

freshwater withdrawals by country in cubic kilometers per year and cubic me-
ters per person per year, using estimated water withdrawals for the year noted
and the United Nations population estimates (medium variant) by country for the
year 2000. The table also gives the reported breakdown of that water use for the
domestic, agricultural, and industrial sectors, in percent of total water use. The
independent data sources are identified in the original table [see (35)]. The domes-
tic sector typically includes household and municipal uses as well as commercial
and governmental water use. The industrial sector typically includes water used
for power plant cooling and industrial production. The agricultural sector includes
water for irrigation and livestock.
Extreme care should be used when applying these data; as noted earlier, they
are often the least reliable and most inconsistent of all water-resources informa-
tion. Despite the efforts of FAO to standardize reporting, the data still come from
 290 GLEICK

a wide variety of sources and are collected using different approaches, with few
formal standards. As a result, this table includes data that are measured, estimated,
and modeled using different assumptions or derived from other data. The data
also come from different years, which makes direct comparisons difficult. As ex-
amples of some of the inconsistencies and gaps, separate data are not available
for the former states of Yugoslavia; industrial withdrawals for Panama, St. Lucia,
St. Vincent, and the Grenadines are included in the domestic category; and none
of the national data include the use of rainfall in agriculture. Many countries
use a significant fraction of the rain falling on their territory for agricultural
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production, but this category of water use is neither accurately measured nor
reported.
Despite these data constraints, Table 2 offers dramatic insights into differences
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in water use around the world, especially when normalized for population. In
Africa, for example, reported water uses range from approximately 600 to 800
cubic meters per person per year (m3/p/yr) in Egypt, Libya, the Sudan and a
handful of other countries to under 20 cubic meters per person per year in the
poorest countries of the continent. For many countries of Africa, as much as 90%
or more of reported withdrawals go to agricultural uses.
In contrast, almost no country in Europe reports per capita withdrawals of less
than several hundred m3/p/yr (estimates of 50 m3/p/yr from Albania are more
than 30 years old and highly suspect), and several exceed 800 m3/p/yr, even with
almost no irrigated agriculture. Another major difference between the two con-
tinents is the far higher proportion of total water use reported in the industrial
sector in Europe, where industry commonly accounts for 60% or more of total
withdrawals.

Experience from the United States

Few regions or countries have better long-term information on water use than the
United States. Beginning in 1951, the U.S. Geological Survey published a series of
comprehensive reports on water use in the United States at approximately five-year
intervals (36–39). These water-use studies include compilations and estimates of
surface and groundwater water use for all states and for various use categories
by state and by major hydrologic region. The initial study estimated water use
for all withdrawals, which included municipal, rural domestic and livestock, ir-
rigation, industrial use, and hydroelectric power. Water for instream flows such
as navigation, recreation, and fish and wildlife were also addressed, though only
qualitatively. Consumptive use of water began to be estimated in the 1960 report,
and estimates were also made of water use in the early decades of the century,
beginning in 1900 (37, 40, 41).
Differences among the states in types of water use, methods of data collection,
reliability of reporting, and funding priorities have resulted in unevenness in the
breadth and depth of available information (42). As a result, the U.S. National
Research Council (43) has recommended a series of improvements in the U.S.
National Water-Use Information Program to help provide more comprehensive and
 WATER USE 291
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Figure 1 Total U.S. water withdrawals 1900 to 1995. The peak of withdrawals occurred in
the 1980s and was followed by a decline as the efficiency of water use nationwide improved
and as the economy shifted to less water-intensive uses.

accurate water-use data. Despite these problems, this series of water-use studies
has proven to be extremely valuable for researchers and policy makers.
One of the most important findings from the long-term data provided by these
reports has been an unexpected change in the trend of water use in the country.
Figure 1 graphs total U.S. water withdrawals from 1900 to 1995 and shows rapid
growth up until the mid- to late-1980s. Water withdrawals then began to level
off and even decline, a change not noted or recognized by water managers or
policy makers until the 1990s. This decline, however, has persisted; indeed, it is
even more apparent when per capita use is measured. Figure 2 shows per capita
water withdrawals (fresh and saline) from 1900 to 1995 together with U.S. pop-
ulation. Since 1980, per capita withdrawals have decreased 20% and now are at
levels comparable to those of the mid-1960s. Yet U.S. population has grown from
approximately 175 million in 1960 to over 270 million in 1995.
The implications of these trends for water planning and policy, and hence the
value of consistency in collecting and reporting water-use data, are dramatic. In
particular, they challenge the assumption of planners that economic and population
growth lead inevitably to growth in water withdrawals and necessary expansion
of supply. And they support the idea that improvements in water-use efficiency
and shifts in economic structure can reduce resource use, even in an expanding
economy (44).
 292 GLEICK
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Figure 2 U.S. population and per capita water withdrawals (fresh and saline) from 1900
to 1995 (36–40, 93).

Despite the value and importance of regular reports on water use, financial
and institutional pressures are forcing many water agencies to cut back, rather
than expand, data collection. In the United States, fiscal policies are leading to
reductions in data collection, analysis, and presentation on water use. The 2000
U.S. Geological Survey national water-use report (scheduled to be released in
2003), for example, will cut back on collection and presentation of data for several
categories; these include mining, livestock, and aquaculture. Data will only be
compiled for states where water uses in these categories are large. Withdrawals
from major groundwater aquifers are only being reported for public supply, irriga-
tion, and industry. Data on commercial water use, wastewater treatment, reservoir
evaporation, and hydroelectric power are no longer being collected nor is informa-
tion on consumptive use, reclaimed wastewater, return flows, or deliveries from
public suppliers (41). These cutbacks in data collection will seriously imperil the
long-term value of the U.S. time series on water use.

FORECASTING WATER USE

Humans have always thought about possible futures, explored plausible paths, and
tried to identify risks and benefits associated with different choices. In recent years,
this has led to a growing interest in scenarios, forecasting, and “future” studies
[see, for example, Schwartz (45)]. Scenario planning has more than academic
 WATER USE 293

implications. Water planners are among the few natural resource managers to
think more than a few years into the future. Designing and building major water
infrastructure can take years, and dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, and pipelines may
last for decades or even centuries, which requires planners to take a relatively long
view.
In the water sector, expectations about future water use drive huge financial
expenditures for water-supply projects. These projects, in turn, have significant
human and ecological impacts. At the same time, not making necessary invest-
ments can lead to the failure to meet fundamental human water needs. The chal-
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lenge facing water planners is to balance the risks and benefits of these kinds of
efforts.
What will future water uses be? How can they be predicted, given all the uncer-
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tainties involved in looking into the future? At the global level, various projections
and estimates of future freshwater demands have been made over the past half cen-
tury; some extended out as much as 60 or 70 years. Reviewing the major studies
that have been done reveals two noteworthy trends: Overestimating future wa-
ter demand, often substantially, is the norm, not the exception; and as tools and
methods for making forecasts improve, forecasts of future water needs drop.
Figure 3 and Table 3 show more than 25 different water projections made before
2000 for various points during the twenty-first century, along with an estimates

Figure 3 Various projections of global water use over time, together with an estimate of
actual water withdrawals (29). Projections made in the 1960s and 1970s greatly overestimated
water use in 2000. Even more recent projections tend to overestimate future use because of
simplistic assumptions of the relation between population, economic growth, and water.
 294 GLEICK

TABLE 3 Summary of various global water forecasts

Estimated
Publication Forecast withdrawal
Author Scenario year year (km3/yr)

Nikitopoulos 1967 2000 6,730

L’vovich Rational use 1974 2000 6,325a
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L’vovich Conventional 1974 2000 12,270a

Kalinin & Shiklomanov 1974 2000 5,970
Falkenmark & Lindh 1974 2000 6,030
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Falkenmark & Lindh 1974 2000 8,380

Falkenmark & Lindh 1974 2015 10,840
Falkenmark & Lindh 1974 2015 7,885
De Mare 1976 2000 5,605a
Belyaev 1990 2000 4,350
World Resources Institute 1990 2000 4,660
Shiklomanov & Markova 1987 2000 4,976a
Shiklomanov 1998 2000 3,717a,b
Shiklomanov 1998 2010 4,089a
Shiklomanov 1998 2025 4,867a
Raskin et al. Low 1997 2025 4,500
Raskin et al. Mid 1997 2025 5,000
Raskin et al. High 1997 2025 5,500
Gleick Sustainable vision 1997 2025 4,270a
Alcamo et al. Medium 2025 1997 2025 4,580
Alcamo et al. Medium 2075 1997 2075 9,496
Raskin et al. Reference 2025 1998 2025 5,044
Raskin et al. Reference 2050 1998 2050 6,081
Raskin et al. Policy reform 2025 1998 2025 4,054
Raskin et al. Policy reform 2050 1998 2050 3,899
Seckler et al. Business as usual 1998 2025 4,569
Seckler et al. High irrigation efficiency 1998 2025 3,625
a
These studies included estimates for water lost from reservoir evaporation. In order to make more consistent comparisons
here with those studies that failed to estimate reservoir evaporative losses, those estimates are subtracted from total
withdrawals. The numbers here thus represent withdrawals without reservoir evaporation. See Gleick (94) for specific
assumptions underlying each projection and for full citations.
b
Actual 1995 water withdrawals were estimated to be 3,765 km3 by Shiklomanov (29).
 WATER USE 295

of actual water use up to 2000. As the figure shows, every one of the projections
made before 1995 greatly overestimated future water demands by assuming that
use would continue to grow at, or even above, historical growth rates. Actual
global water withdrawals in the late 1990s were only around half of what they
were expected to be by most forecasts 30 years earlier. The inaccuracy of these
past projections highlights the importance of developing better methods for making
projections of future needs.
The earliest projections routinely, and significantly, overestimated future wa-
ter demands because of their dependence on relatively simplistic extrapolation of
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existing trends. Most of the earliest projections used variants on the same method-
ology: Future water use was based on population projections; simple assumptions
of industrial, commercial, and residential water-use intensity (e.g., water per unit
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population or income); and basic estimates of future crop production as a function

of irrigated area and crop yield. Early scenarios were typically single, business-
as-usual projections with no variants. Most scenarios ignored water requirements
for instream ecological needs, navigation, hydropower production, and recreation.
And almost all of these forecasts showed dramatic increases in demand over time,
sometimes to implausible levels that led many observers to worry about water
shortfalls and shortages. In some areas of the world, such shortages and shortfalls
are already manifest, and new problem areas are likely to emerge in coming years.
But it is also important to note that every one of the early global water projections
estimated far greater demands for water, many of them by a substantial margin,
than have actually materialized. This suggests that the traditional methods used
by water-scenario developers are missing some critically important real-world
dynamics.
One of the earliest and most comprehensive assessments was prepared in 1974
by L’vovich (46). Detailed assumptions were made for a variety of human uses
to the year 2000; these included domestic and industrial water use, irrigated and
nonirrigated agricultural water demands, and hydropower, navigation, and fishery
water requirements. In his business-as-usual scenario, L’vovich assumed that do-
mestic per capita withdrawals would continue to increase, that water consumption
for energy production would grow by a factor of 20, while water consumption per
unit energy would be cut in half, gross industrial water use would increase by a
factor of 15, and agricultural water-use efficiency would increase slightly while
total demands doubled with population. All together, he projected water demands
in 2000 of more than 12,000 cubic kilometers, a fourfold increase over 1974. The
work of L’vovich served as the basis for many later projections, which may have
used different assumptions, baseline data, and details, but all approached the idea
of water-use projections in the same way (47–49).
The methods and tools used for forecasting and scenario analysis have been get-
ting more and more sophisticated and permit a better understanding of the driving
factors behind changes in demands for water. New projections are taking advan-
tage of advances in computer capabilities, the availability of better water data, and
new concepts of scenario development. These estimates have begun to include
 296 GLEICK

reassessments of actual water needs and water-use efficiencies, dietary require-

ments, cropping patterns and types, and ecosystem functions (50, 51). Large-scale
water-use projections have also become increasingly sophisticated due to the grow-
ing capability of easily accessible computers to handle significant numbers of cal-
culations and the growing availability of water-use data. Assessments that were
conducted for continental areas or on a national basis are now being done for
watersheds on smaller and smaller temporal and spatial scales (52, 53).
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THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WATER USE

AND HUMAN WELL-BEING
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The common assumption that growing populations and economic development

will inevitably lead to greater human uses of water drove most of the projections
described previously. This assumption, however, deserves closer scrutiny, espe-
cially if the idea of a soft path requires us to reconsider the distinction between
water use and water needs (6–8). And when a closer look is taken, there are impor-
tant examples for which, and reasons why, the assumption that increases in human
well-being require ever larger uses of water breaks down.
Figure 4 shows the relationship between per capita GDP (a well-understood,
albeit imperfect, measure of well-being) and per capita water use for a wide range
of countries. As this graph suggests, there is no clear connection between these
two variables. Several high water–using nations have very low per capita GDP,
and several of the wealthiest nations have very low per capita water use.
A far more important determinant of water use is the extent to which coun-
tries commit their water resources to the production of food, especially irrigated
agriculture. Large grain-producing countries, such as Canada, the United States,
Argentina, and Australia, all have significantly higher per capita water use than av-
erage. Figure 5 shows per capita grain production and per capita water withdrawals
for the world’s major grain producers. The countries in the top right of the graph
are those that produce large amounts of grain and serve as the world’s leading
grain exporters. As this graph suggests, a commitment to this level of agricultural
production requires a commitment of a substantial amount of water.
This evidence also suggests that countries can have quite high standards of
living (as measured by GDP) at modest per capita levels of water withdrawals, as
long as someone is producing and exporting sufficient food to satisfy all needs.
Indeed, the trade in grain has recently been acknowledged to be a trade in water
as well—the water embodied in trade goods has been dubbed “virtual” water
(54).
Many water planners still believe that using less water somehow means a loss of
prosperity. The traditional assumption, repeated over and over in water plans and
discussions about the risk of future water shortages, is that continued increases in
population and improvements in well-being require continued increases in water
use. This might be true in the absence of improvements in technology or water
 WATER USE 297
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Figure 4 Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) plotted against per capita water with-
drawals for a wide range of countries. No clear relationship can be seen from this graph,
which suggests that the relationship between GDP and water use is not a simple one.

management, but with such improvements, there is enormous room for economic
growth without growth in water use. For example, producing a ton of steel before
World War II required 100 to 200 tons of water (55, 56). Today, each ton of steel
can be produced with less than four tons of water: a vast improvement in water
productivity (57). Furthermore, because a ton of aluminum can be produced using
only one and a half tons of water, replacing the use of steel with aluminum, as
has been happening for many years in the automobile industry, can further lower
water use without reducing economic activity (6).
The links between water use, population, and economic well-being are not
immutable. They can be modified and even broken, as has already happened in the
United States, China, and elsewhere. For example, Japan used nearly 50 million
liters of water to produce a million dollars of commercial output in 1965; by
1989 this had dropped to 14 million liters per million constant (inflation-adjusted)
dollars of commercial output, which quadrupled water productivity (58).
The evidence for the changing connections between economic well-being and
total water use can be seen by graphically comparing long-term data on water
use, population, and gross domestic product for different regions. Serious data
constraints limit the comparisons that can be made, especially constraints on the
availability of reliable long-term water-use data. Nevertheless, data from a variety
 298 GLEICK
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Figure 5 Per capita grain production plotted against per capita water withdrawals for a
wide range of countries. Countries with major grain production also have major water use
because of the need to supply substantial irrigation water.

of regions show the traditional increases in water use associated with increases in
population and GDP, up to a point, followed by a divergence between these factors
as countries begin to shift from a focus on supply and water development to one
focused on water use and efficiency.
Figures 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 show estimates of total water use over time
for a number of countries or regions plotted against GDP or population. The
challenge for water managers in coming years is how to make the transition from
the false assumption that growing populations and growing economies require ever
increasing amounts of water.

CHANGING WATER-USE PATTERNS: THE POTENTIAL

FOR IMPROVING WATER-USE EFFICIENCY
The relationship between water use and well-being is changing for two major rea-
sons. First, improvements in technology and management approaches are permit-
ting needs to be met with less water, and second, the nature of economies is shifting
away from water-intensive goods and services toward lower water-using, higher-
valued production. These changes permit nonstructural solutions to be considered
as useful and practical tools for meeting future expectations about water demand.
 WATER USE 299
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by University of California - Berkeley on 11/13/06. For personal use only.

Figure 6 Polish GDP in U.S. dollars (squares) and total water withdrawals in Poland
(diamonds). After democratization in Poland, economic productivity soared, and water use
(represented as the trend line) decreased as industries rapidly improved overall efficiency.

Figure 7 Water sales and population for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, which serves 17 million people. Water conservation and efficiency programs
have led to a leveling off of demand, despite growing populations.
 300 GLEICK
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by University of California - Berkeley on 11/13/06. For personal use only.

Figure 8 Hong Kong GDP and total water withdrawals. The curves appear to follow the
water use in most classic industrialized countries, with a break between rising GDP in constant
1990 Hong Kong dollars and water use, which in this case occurred around 1990 (D. Chen,
Chinese University of Hong Kong, personal communication).

The concept of integrating nonstructural water-management approaches into

water planning goes back many decades. In 1950, the Water Resources Policy
Commission of the United States published A Water Policy for the American
People, which noted that
We can no longer be wasteful and careless in our attitude towards our water
resources. Not only in the West, where the crucial value of water has long been
recognized, but in every part of the country, we must manage and conserve
water if we are to make the best use of it for future development (59).
In the early 1960s, White called for broadening the range of alternatives exam-
ined by water managers who had previously only focused on structural solutions
to water problems (60). Under White’s approach, managers should consider both
structural and nonstructural alternatives, including zoning, land-use planning, and
changing water-use patterns. Unfortunately, traditional water management has, in
general, continued to concentrate heavily on the construction of physical infra-
structure.
Wherever fresh water was abundant historically, end-use technologies were
simple. Washbasins, with or without running water, or pipes located at the proper
height over well-drained surfaces were adequate for drinking, cooking, bathing,
 WATER USE 301
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Figure 9 China’s GDP index (1952 = 100) and total water withdrawals.

Figure 10 U.S. GNP (1996 dollars) and total water withdrawals in the United States. U.S.
water use rose consistently with GDP up until the 1980s when the two curves split apart.
Total water use in the United States is now actually well below its peak level, because the
economic productivity of water use in the United States has improved.
 302 GLEICK
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Figure 11 Total Finish GDP (1995 FIM) and water withdrawals in Finland.

and clothes washing. Machinery that used water, such as electrically powered
clothes washers, were designed much later to replace human labor, not to use
water more efficiently. Sophisticated and technically efficient water measurement
and use devices, a key component of soft path water systems, were not necessary
and did not develop as rapidly as did water collection and distribution technologies.
Where water was scarce, more efficient technologies and patterns of use were
developed. The choice of crops is a good example: People need nutritional food
but can choose among a variety of crops to meet that need. Olives are an important
part of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures because they are well adapted
to semiarid regions. Rice was grown in wetter regions of the world and did not
appear in arid regions prior to the availability of inexpensive energy and irrigation
water. Such crop choices are examples of appropriate decisions when water is
scarce.
Most water managers have a background in engineering with a focus on building
structures to capture and deliver water and water services (61). Thus the idea that
rice can be grown in water-scarce regions seems like a simple problem of figuring
out how to move water from elsewhere. Efficiency improvements, however, depend
on the behavior of water users, rather than water agency or company personnel,
and on the application of technologies at the end-use level. Capturing these im-
provements requires different professional skills and training than are traditionally
taught in water management schools. As the water-use efficiency and management
 WATER USE 303

field matures, however, water utilities will increasingly demand training in people
management, the application of small-scale technology, and water-use assessment.
Indeed, growing numbers of water agencies now have water conservation depart-
ments, and professional societies, such as the American Water Works Association
and the International Water Resources Association, are promoting efficiency dis-
cussions and adding water-use experts and groups (62, 62a).
To compound the problem of training and the need for new professional skills,
the economics of efficiency improvements have been poorly understood and inac-
curately estimated by traditional methods. As a result, estimates of the potential
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for improving water-use efficiency are almost always lower than the true potential,
as the inaccurate projections described earlier suggest. In places where an effort
has been made to identify and capture improvements in water-use efficiency, water
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demands have been cut by 20%, 30%, 40% or more (11, 58, 63).

Cost-Effectiveness of Efficiency Improvements

Centralized water facilities were historically lower in cost, within a narrow ac-
counting methodology, than decentralized investments in efficiency. This may still
be the case in some circumstances. But the belief that efficiency improvements
are more expensive than new or expanded centralized water supply is incorrect in
most circumstances (64, 65). In addition, it is increasingly apparent that most cost
projections of new large, centralized systems are routinely and often substantially
underestimated, even without accounting for hard-to-measure environmental and
social costs. Although this is a problem common to many large capital projects, it
has received considerable attention around the construction of dams and reservoirs,
which often end up costing much more than originally projected (66). World Bank
statistics on dam construction projects suggest that construction cost overruns av-
eraged 30% on the 70 hydropower projects funded by the Bank since the 1960s
(67). Other World Bank studies found that three quarters of the 80 hydro projects
completed in the 1970s and 1980s had costs in excess of their budgets, and almost
one third of the projects studied had actual costs that exceeded estimates by 50%
or more (68).
There are many reasons for cost overruns; these include delays, design errors,
poor quality construction, or corruption of project advocates and managers. For
example, the Chixoy Dam in Guatemala was delayed for nine years by the collapse
of poorly designed tunnels, social opposition, and corruption. Its final cost of $1.2
billion was more than five times its initial cost estimate, and some studies suggest
the final cost may have been as high as $2.5 billion (69). The Yacyreta Dam on the
Parana River between Argentina and Paraguay became known as a “monument to
corruption” as the cost of the project increased to $8 billion from an original esti-
mate of $1.6 billion (67). Cost overruns are not restricted to projects in less devel-
oped countries. In 2000, an economist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blew the
whistle on biased cost-benefit studies for projects along the Missouri and Missis-
sippi rivers, which led to calls for reform of the cost estimating and evaluation (70).
 304 GLEICK

In contrast, the cost of efficiency improvements seems to be decreasing over

time as technologies and conservation programs mature and as rate designs begin
to account for the true costs of water supply (71, 72). In the United States, the best
low-flow toilets cost no more on average than inadequate low-flow models or older
wasteful models, especially over the lifetime of the product (11). As water suppliers
have learned which models reliably save water, and provided this information to
their customers, the cost of conserving water via low-flow toilet installation has
fallen. This trend will continue as the technology for pressure-flush toilets (around
0.6 gallons per flush) and waterless toilets and urinals improves.
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Another reason for the belief that efficiency improvements are too expensive
is that traditional water planners usually estimate the cost of efficiency improve-
ments without accounting for secondary benefits. Such secondary benefits, such as
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energy savings, can be substantial. In the residential sector in California, without

accounting for the avoided energy expense for water heating, for example, only ef-
ficient toilets and showerheads are cost-effective compared with new water supply
projects at any water price exceeding $0.05 per cubic meter. After accounting for
energy benefits, efficient clothes- and dishwashers would be highly cost-effective,
even if new water supply could be obtained for free (7, 73)
There are other secondary benefits to be gained as well that are rarely calculated.
Among these are
■ Reductions in peak water system loads. Peak loads determine the size of
capital facilities required, hence capital costs. Lower peak loads mean that
existing capital facilities can serve more customers and avoid or reduce the
expense of these facilities.
■ Reductions in peak energy demands. Energy and water supply networks are
similar in many ways. Reduction of peak energy demands that result from
efficiency improvements and a decrease in water pumping, treatment, or
heating needs will similarly allow energy utilities to serve more customers
with existing capital facilities and avoid or reduce capital expenses that are
ultimately paid by energy purchasers.
■ Reductions in wastewater treatment expenses, both operational expenses and
costs for expanding sewers or treatment facilities.
■ Reductions in environmental damage from water withdrawals or wastewater
discharges in environmentally sensitive locations.
■ Increases in employment, for example, by increasing the rate at which appli-
ances or irrigation systems are monitored, serviced, or replaced. Investments
in large, centralized capital facilities increase employment during construc-
tion but use relatively little labor once construction is complete (73, 74).
The belief that efficiency improvements are not economically competitive with
expansion of centralized supplies is slowly being overcome. Water planners are
beginning to realize that the cost escalation, construction delays, and interest
charges that so often plague large capital-intensive water projects rarely occur in
 WATER USE 305

conservation programs. This has been seen over and over again. For example, in
Santa Barbara, California, a severe drought in the late 1970s stimulated local resi-
dents to support the construction of a large desalination plant, as well as a pipeline
to connect to the centralized state water project. When the very high economic
costs of those facilities were passed on to consumers, conservation and efficiency
improvements reduced demand so fast that the need for the new facilities disap-
peared (75). The desalination plant was never put into routine operation and is
mothballed (partially decommissioned). If effective pricing programs, education,
and community planning had been done first, the expense of these facilities could
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have been long delayed and perhaps completely avoided.

A number of municipal water suppliers around the world have implemented
aggressive water conservation programs. Municipal conservation programs that
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are fully integrated have shown impressive successes. Postel (63) includes an ex-
cellent summary of successful municipal programs in Jerusalem, Israel; Mexico
City, Mexico; Los Angeles, California; Beijing, China; Singapore; Boston,
Massachusetts; Waterloo, Canada; Bogor, Indonesia; and Melbourne, Australia.
Reductions in water demand varied from 10%–30%. Vickers (11, 76) updates
the results from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which serves the
Boston area, and presents data for the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and
many other communities. Several municipalities have reported reductions of 25%
or more. Owens-Viani (77) presents results from the Marin Municipal Water Dis-
trict in Northern California, where a conservation management plan led to a re-
duction in demand of about 15% in the first 10 years of implementation, despite
a 7.5% increase in the district’s population. This is only about half of their 20-
year target of up to a 32% reduction in absolute demand despite increases in
population. After adjusting for population growth, this 20-year target, already
half achieved, amounts to a reduction in water use of approximately 45% per
capita.
There are many opportunities for improving the efficiency of commercial, in-
dustrial, and institutional water uses. Pike (78) evaluated opportunities for various
commercial and institutional water users in the United States and found that av-
erage potential savings vary from 9% to 31% within 18 categories of users (e.g.,
eating and drinking places, vehicle dealers, and services). Gleick et al. (73) found
that overall savings potential in California’s commercial and industrial sector was
nearly 40% with existing technology. Similar statistics are provided by Vickers
(11), who includes examples from outside the United States where potential reduc-
tions in industrial water use are often larger when combined with aggressive leak
detection and repair. In many developing countries, 20% to 40%, or even more,
of the water put into a system never reaches consumers because of leaks. Table 4
from Gleick (17) summarizes information on “unaccounted for water” from cities
and countries around the world.
Most of these opportunities are cost effective and widely applicable. For in-
dustrial savings, one analysis found typical reductions of 30%–40% with esti-
mated payback periods of less than one year (79). The report concluded: “The cost
 306 GLEICK

TABLE 4 Unaccounted for water (17). See original for details on sources

Location Period/year Percent

Africa (large city average) 1990s 39

Algiers, Algeria 1990s 51
Amman, Jordan 1990s 52
Asia (large city average) 1990s 35 to 42
Bahrain 1993 36
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Bahrain 2000 24
Barbados 1996 43
Buenos Aires, Argentina 1993 43
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Buenos Aires, Argentina 1996 31

Canada (average) 1990s 15
Casablanca, Morocco 1990s 34
Damascus, Syria 1995 64
Dubai, United Arab Emirates 1990s 15
Gaza 1995 47
Gaza 1999 31
Haiphong, Vietnam 1998 70
Hanoi, Vietnam 1995 63
Hebron 1990s 48
Johor Bahru, Malaysia 1995 21
Kansas, United States (average) 1997 15
Kansas, United States (range) 1997 3 to 65
Lae, Papua New Guinea 1995 61
Latin America/Caribbean (large city average) 1990s 42
Lebanon 1990s 40
Male, Maldives 1995 10
Mandalay, Myanmar 1995 60
Mexico City, Mexico 1997 37
Mexico City, Mexico 1999 32
Nairobi, Kenya 2000 50
Nicosia, Cyprus 1990s 16
North America (large city average) 1990s 15
Oran, Algeria 1990s 42
Penang, Malaysia 1995 20
Phnom Penh, Vietnam 1995 61

(Continued )
 WATER USE 307

TABLE 4 (Continued )

Location Period/year Percent

Poland (medium utility range) 1990s 19 to 51

Rabat, Morocco 1990s 18
Ramallah 1990s 25
Rarotonga, Cook Islands 1995 70
Sana’a, Yemen 1990s 50
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Seoul, South Korea 1996 35

Singapore 1990s 11
Singapore 1995 6
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Sydney, Australia 1990s 13.4

Tamir, Yemen 1990s 28
Teheran, Iran 1990s 35
Tunisia (large utility range) 1990s 8 to 21
United Kingdom (small utility range) 1990s 14 to 30
United States (average) 1990s 12
Vietnam (average) 1998 50
Washington, DC area suppliers 1999 10 to 28

effective water conservation measures successfully used at the case study facilities
can readily be adopted by other facilities and other industries.”
Major efficiency improvements are possible in the agricultural sector as well,
and because this sector consumes such a large fraction of total human water use, it
is deserving of special attention (80–82). Traditional irrigation methods are very
inefficient. Furrow or flood irrigation is the simplest form of irrigation, with water
delivered to rows of crops from a ditch or pipeline. As water moves into each
row, it infiltrates the soil. For ideal irrigation, the amount of water infiltrated is
just adequate to replace depleted soil water. In actuality, however, soils at the top
end of rows receive more water than necessary to ensure that water reaches the
end of each furrow, even if land is leveled to permit full coverage. These systems
are among the most inefficient available, though experienced irrigators and careful
tuning can somewhat reduce losses.
More efficient sprinkler systems that can apply water more accurately and
carefully than flood systems are available. Sprinklers can be fixed or moving and
require pumps to provide pressure necessary to distribute water through pipes.
Fixed sprinklers require sufficient pipes and sprinkler heads to cover an entire
field. To irrigate the field, sprinklers need only to be turned on and off. Moving
sprinkler systems permit a small system to cover larger areas and can include
 308 GLEICK

periodically moved systems or constantly moved systems. Center-pivot and lateral-

move systems are the most common, with a lateral pipeline that moves continuously
in a direction perpendicular to the lateral or is fixed at one end to irrigate a large
circular area. A modification of these moving systems is the low-energy, precision
application (LEPA) system that discharges water just above the soil surface and
reduces unproductive evaporative losses (83, 84).
Water productivity improvements can also be gained from techniques such
as furrow diking, land leveling, direct seeding, drip irrigation, micro sprinklers,
careful scheduling of irrigation, water recycling, and careful water accounting
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(85). For example, micro-irrigation systems (primarily drip and micro sprinklers)
often achieve efficiencies in excess of 95% as compared with flood irrigation
efficiencies of 60% or less (11, 86). As of 2000, however, the area under mi-
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cro irrigation is around 2.8 million ha, only about 1% of all irrigated land (87).
In China, vast quantities of the water used in agriculture are used inefficiently.
In 2000, 97% of all Chinese irrigation used furrow/flood irrigation; 3% of the
irrigated area was watered with sprinkers and drip systems (88). Even in Cal-
ifornia, a small fraction of all cropland was irrigated with drip systems in the
mid-1990s (6).
Another example is laser leveling of fields, which permits water to be distributed
more uniformly. This reduces the water required to ensure that all parts of the field
are irrigated adequately. Recent experience growing wheat, alfalfa, and cotton in
the Welton-Mohawk Valley of Arizona found that water use declined between
20%–32% as a result of laser leveling, and yields increased from 12%–22% (11).
This practice requires that land be leveled every two to five years, at a relatively
modest cost, ∼$100 per hectare.
Precision irrigation remains expensive, which makes it suitable only for higher-
value crops. Extending more efficient irrigation systems to the vast numbers of
small farmers is critical if significant new improvements in agricultural water use
are to be captured. Most of the world’s 1.1 billion farmers live in developing
countries and cultivate plots smaller than two hectares (89). These farmers cannot
afford sophisticated and costly precision irrigation systems, yet they would benefit
from access to better equipment. In recent years, new low-cost drip techniques
have begun to emerge and open up vast potential for the poor small farmers of
developing countries. International Development Enterprises has helped push the
development of simple but functional low-cost solutions using cloth filtration, a
bucket as a container, and inexpensive drip lines. These systems can reduce the
capital costs from $2500 to $250 per hectare, reduce water use by 50%, and in-
crease yields (90–92). Widespread expansion of such low-cost drip systems has the
potential to boost farmer incomes, raise yields and crop productivity, and amelio-
rate persistent hunger, while reducing overall water use in agriculture. It remains to
be seen if the barriers to widespread application of inexpensive efficiency systems,
such as higher production and maintenance expenses, the need for local produc-
tion of equipment, and farmer reluctance to adopt unfamiliar technology, can be
overcome.
 WATER USE 309

Urban Improvements: The Example of California

California has begun to explore the potential for improving the efficiency of water
use in every sector because of growing constraints on new supply. New studies
suggest that the future potential for improving urban water-use efficiency is large
even in regions and sectors that have already conserved a considerable amount of
water (73). Figure 12 shows indoor residential water use in California under a busi-
ness as usual scenario through 2020 and an estimate of total indoor residential use
if currently cost-effective technologies and policies are implemented. The upper
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line in this figure indicates the level of water use statewide without implementing
efficiency measures and would require the state to develop new water supplies to
meet this projected need. The lower line in the figure is the maximum practical
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savings from implementing the current best practical technologies.

The two curves show that a traditional water policy would require about a
45% increase (over 1.1 billion cubic meters per year from current levels) in water
supply for indoor residential purposes by the year 2020, but an efficient path
actually reduces total indoor residential demand by about 25% (over 600 million

Figure 12 Expected California indoor residential water use from 1998 to 2020 assuming
no improvements in efficiency (top curve) and assuming that all cost-effective improvements
using existing technology are implemented (bottom curve). If all efficiency improvements
are implemented, total indoor residential water use in 2020 could be below the level of actual
water use in 1980, despite a 50% increase in population.
 310 GLEICK

cubic meters) despite population growth. This means that the soft path for indoor
residential use can cost-effectively conserve about 1.7 billion cubic meters of
water by the year 2020 (73). This simple example, for a single sector of California
water use, shows the dramatic gains possible by putting more effort into demand-
management of water.

CONCLUSIONS

The focus of water planning and management is slowly shifting from the develop-
Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2003.28:275-314. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

ment of water-supply systems to more integrated analysis of how and why humans
use water. By better understanding water needs, improvements in the overall pro-
ductivity of human activities can be identified and achieved, which will reduce
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water use and the adverse implications of that use.

Water use is still poorly understood and inadequately measured and reported.
Problems with definitions and data collection hinder efforts to improve water-use
efficiency. Inappropriate water planning still results from simplistic assumptions
about how water uses will change in the future. Nevertheless, a substantial shift in
thinking has occurred in recent years as the social, political, economic, and envi-
ronmental costs of traditional water developments have become apparent. There is
growing evidence and experience that shows how improvements in water-use effi-
ciency can offer the fastest and cleanest sources of new supply by reducing overall
demands for water in every sector. In some countries, water use is even beginning
to level off or decline despite growing populations and economies and offers the
hope that smart management will be an effective tool in sustainable water systems.

The Annual Review of Environment and Resources is online at

http://environ.annualreviews.org

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 Annual Review of Environment and Resources
Volume 28, 2003

CONTENTS
Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2003.28:275-314. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

I. EARTH’S LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Climate Change, Climate Modes, and Climate Impacts,
Guiling Wang and David Schimel 1
by University of California - Berkeley on 11/13/06. For personal use only.

The Cleansing Capacity of the Atmosphere, Ronald G. Prinn 29

Evaluating Uncertainties in Regional Photochemical Air Quality
Modeling, James Fine, Laurent Vuilleumier, Steve Reynolds,
Philip Roth, and Nancy Brown 59
Transport of Energy, Information, and Material Through the Biosphere,
William A. Reiners and Kenneth L. Driese 107
Global State of Biodiversity and Loss, Rodolfo Dirzo and Peter H. Raven 137
Patterns and Mechanisms of the Forest Carbon Cycle, Stith T. Gower 169
II. HUMAN USE OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES
Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions,
Eric F. Lambin, Helmut J. Geist, and Erika Lepers 205
Urban Centers: An Assessment of Sustainability, Gordon McGranahan
and David Satterthwaite 243
Water Use, Peter H. Gleick 275
Meeting Cereal Demand While Protecting Natural Resources and
Improving Environmental Quality, Kenneth G. Cassman,
Achim Dobermann, Daniel T. Walters, and Haishun Yang 315
State of the World’s Fisheries, Ray Hilborn, Trevor A. Branch, Billy Ernst,
Arni Magnusson, Carolina V. Minte-Vera, Mark D. Scheuerell,
and Juan L. Valero 359
Green Chemistry and Engineering: Drivers, Metrics, and Reduction to
Practice, Anne E. Marteel, Julian A. Davies, Walter W. Olson,
and Martin A. Abraham 401
III. MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN DIMENSIONS
International Environmental Agreements: A Survey of Their Features,
Formation, and Effects, Ronald B. Mitchell 429

x
 CONTENTS xi

Tracking Multiple Pathways of Human Exposure to Persistent Multimedia

Pollutants: Regional, Continental, and Global Scale Models,
Thomas E. McKone and Matthew MacLeod 463
Geographic Information Science and Systems for Environmental
Management, Michael F. Goodchild 493
The Role of Carbon Cycle Observations and Knowledge in Carbon
Management, Lisa Dilling, Scott C. Doney, Jae Edmonds,
Kevin R. Gurney, Robert Harriss, David Schimel, Britton Stephens,
Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2003.28:275-314. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

and Gerald Stokes 521

Characterizing and Measuring Sustainable Development,
Thomas M. Parris and Robert W. Kates 559
by University of California - Berkeley on 11/13/06. For personal use only.

Just Oil? The Distribution of Environmental and Social Impacts of Oil

Production and Consumption, Dara O’Rourke and Sarah Connolly 587

INDEXES
Subject Index 619
Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 19–28 649
Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 19–28 653

ERRATA
An online log of corrections to Annual Review of
Environment and Resources chapters may be found
at http://environ.annualreviews.org