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You Mean Water Use Went Down? Again??

TbPvtY In: You Mean Water Use Went Down? Again?? | Our Santa Fe River, Inc. (OSFR) | Protecting the Santa Fe River
On June 22, 2014 at 08:46PM, Tom at Watery Foundation published the following article:

The USGS report on 2010 water use in Florida is finally published and online. Rich Marella always does a great job on this report and the new one is no exception. For me, the most important fact in the report is that water use in Florida has gone down:

…total freshwater withdrawals decreased by more than 1,792 Mgal/d (22 percent) between 2000 and 2010, while the population increased by 2.82 million (18 percent), and total freshwater withdrawals decreased by more than 474 Mgal/d (7 percent) between 2005 and 2010, while the population increased by 0.88 million (8 percent). The recent trend of decreases in freshwater withdrawals is a result of increased rainfall during this period, the development and use of alternative water sources, water conservation efforts, more conservative regulations and mandates, changes in economic conditions, and losses of irrigated lands. Freshwater withdrawals for public supply, agricultural self-supplied use, and commercial-industrial-mining self-supplied use all decreased between 2000 and 2010 and between 2005 and 2010, whereas freshwater withdrawals for domestic self-supplied use, recreational-landscape irrigation use, and power generation use either remained the same or changed lightly.

There is good reason to think that these trends will continue for the reasonably foreseeable future. Water use could even go down significantly more if additional cost-effective water conservation measures were implemented. Florida water policy and funding should reflect that need and expectation rather than panicky fears about running out of water.

Read this article at Watery Foundation at http://ift.tt/1nvSAx1
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