Page 52 - Water Loss Control

34 Cha pte r F o u r

Per capita world water withdrawals for all uses: Agriculture, industrial, and domestic
1000
9261836942
900

800

700

600
ons/person/day 500

Ga 4343860501 4425471119
400
3274887376
300

2254930621
200
1339185244
100

0
Africa South Asia Australia Europe North
America America
FIGURE 4.1 Comparison of world wide water utilization. (Source: Ref. 2.)

consumption volumes shown in Fig. 4.1 are subject to a certain level of error. Basically,
good data does not exist in many countries, so assessments like these always must be
interpreted in a very general manner. However, Fig. 4.1 provides a good general picture
on the significant differences in world water withdrawals for all uses: agriculture,
industrial, and domestic.
“Conserving” is sometimes viewed as “doing with less,” a notion that sometimes
runs contrary to the American way of thinking, which is often geared toward building,
development, and exploitation of resources. For many utilities water is unmetered, thus
removing the “finite” sense of the resource from the thinking of both the consumer and
the supplier. Like other parts of the world, water is often under-valued—literally and