1) Water use in the United States in 2005 totaled 1.5 billion cubic meters/day,b

Question

1) Water use in the United States in 2005 totaled 1.5 billion cubic meters/day,breaking down as follows:1.2 billion cubic meters/day surface water (about 328 million gallons) 310 million cubic meters/day groundwater

If you assume that we conserve some water and use just 1 billion cubicmeters of surface water per day in the United States for a full year, how doesthis compare to the volume of water in all of the Great Lakes (which contain23,000 cubic kilometers, or 5,500 cubic miles)?

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2). What does this analysis tell you about how long the Great Lakes’ water would last,if the United States took it all, and what does this tell you about the importanceof precipitation in sustaining our use of water?

Explanation / Answer

1) Since 1 billion cubic meters of surface water per day is being used so that conserves 0.2 billion cubic meters per day.

Multiply that by 365 days will give you the amount saved in a year and that is equal to73 billion cubic meters of surface water in a year.

Now the volume of water in the great lakes is 23,000 cubic kilometers.

So now you have to convert this into cubic meters. 1km = 1000m. So 1 cubic kilometer = 1000*1000*1000 cubic meters

SO the volume of the great lakes =23,000 billion cubic meters.

2) Considering that the US consumes 1.2 billion cubic meters of surface water in a day.. It will take 23,000/1.2 = 19,166.67 days to finish off all the water in the Great Lakes.

Thats 19166.67/365 = 52.5 years

Thus this shows you the importance of precipitation in sustaining water use. Because otherwise in half a century, the Great Lakes are going to vanish.

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