In today's world we are all more aware of the need to conserve freshwater. With the ever-growing demand for water by growing populations worldwide, it makes sense to try to find more uses for the abundant saline water supplies that exist, mainly in the oceans. As these pie charts of the Nation's water use show, about 15 percent of all water used in the United States in 2000 was saline. The second chart shows that almost all saline withdrawals, over 96 percent, was used by the thermoelectric-power industry to cool electricity-generating equipment. About two percent of the Nation's saline water was used for mining and industrial purposes.
Note: For 2000, mining data was compiled only for the 22 States that reported significant withdrawals in 1995.
[D] - Data table for the pie charts are available.
It makes sense that the states that border the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico should make the most use of saline water. This pie chart shows the states that used the most saline water in 2000—they are all coastal states. Almost one-half of all saline water used occurred in California, Florida, and Maryland. The main use was to cool electricity generators in power plants.
[D] - Data table for the pie chart are available.
As the chart below shows, the use of saline water, and freshwater, also, has been trending downward since peaking in 1980. But, in the period of 1950 to 1980, the use of saline water increased at a much higher rate than freshwater use. This is probably because the technology to desalinate water was not well perfected (on a large scale) in the 1950s.
Sources and more information
Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2000, USGS Circular 1268:
• Surface-water withdrawals by water-use category (data table)
• Total, surface-water, and ground-water withdrawals (maps)
U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/salineuses.html
Page Contact Information: Howard Perlman
Page Last Modified: Friday, 07-Nov-2008 15:45:38 EST
