"SURFACE WATER BRANCH LIBRARY

Are you concerned about 

water? You will be

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

CIRCULAR 425

Are you Concerned About Water?

You will be

By Arthur M. Piper

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CIRCULAR 425

Washington, I960
United States Department of the Interior

FRED A. SEATON, SECRETARY

Geological Survey

THOMAS B. NOLAN, DIRECTOR

Free on application to the U. S. Geological Survey, Washington 25, D. C.
Are you Concerned About Water?

You will be

By Arthur M. Piper

A lecture in the series on "Earth Sciences, Their Value Today,' Stanford University School of Mineral Sciences. 

Jan. 18, 1960.

As geologists and engineers, all of us are 

sure to become ever more deeply concerned 

with problems of water supply in the United 

States and their many ramifications. Roots 

of this concern lie in the expectation that the 

use of water in the United States, measured 

at the points of withdrawal from the streams 

or from the ground, will double by about 1980. 

What, then, is present use in relation to potential supply?

As of 1955, the latest year for which comprehensive estimates are available1 , total 

withdrawal of water in the United States averaged about 240 billion gallons per day. Water 

used for generating electric energy is here 

excluded; it is six-fold greater in volume. 

For each family of four persons the major 

categories of use average as follows:

Gallona Percentage

per day of total

Municipal and rural-domestic

supplies.................................................... 445 8

Irrigation........................................................ 2,520 46

Industry (self supplied X............................. 2,520 46

Total.«....................................................... 5,485 100

Possibly each of you will balk at accepting 

these averages that your family's share in 

the Nation's rapacious thirst for water is 

equivalent roughly to 9 barrels for personal 

use, and 500 barrels each for its share in irrigated crops and in the products of industry 

each day. Consider, however, the ever growing number of kitchen-refuse disposers, mechanical dishwashers, and home swimming 

pools. Each of these is a water-hungry component in a standard of living that we take for 

granted and that is rising steadily; too much

of the Earth's population, that standard is 

luxurious indeed. Consider also that, in manufacturing the component materials in your 

personal automobile, the water used would 

have filled a tank of dimensions roughly equal 

to those of your home.

In regard to the Nation's total use of water, 

several instructive comparisons dan be 

drawn. Of all water withdrawals, 73 percent 

is taken from streams, lakes, and reservoirs; 

19 percent is fresh water drawn from the 

: ground; 8 percent is saline water, largely 

from the ocean; and about 0.1 percent is re- 

.claimed sewage. Of the water withdrawn for 

municipal supplies, about 10 percent is consumed; of that for irrigation, about 60 percent; and of that for industry, about 2 percent 

only in total, about 30 percent is consumed 

and 70 percent returns to streams. However, 

a substantial part of the return is contaminated 

or is warmer than natural so that, unless 

pretreated, its availability for re-use is depreciated. This is true of essentially all return from municipal and domestic use, of a 

considerable fraction of that from industry, 

and of some return from irrigation.

How is water use distributed geographically? Municipal and rural-domestic withdrawals are greatest in the densely populated 

Northeast. Withdrawals for industry are dominant east of the Mississippi River; those for 

irrigation are dominant west of that river. 

Of total withdrawals, that from ground-water 

sources is greater in the southern half of the 

Nation, and greatest in the Southwest. 2 As 

of 1955, the 10 most water-hungry States accounted for 55 percent of the Nation's water 

use. In rank by water use, (as shown in table 

on the following page).

*MacKichan, K. A., 1957, Estimates use of water in the 

United States, 1955: U. S. Geol. Survey Circular 398, 18 p.

2 Piper, A. M., 1953, The Nation-wide water situation: The 

physical and economic foundation of natural resources, Part IV, 

Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, House of Representatives, 

U. S. 81st Congress, p. 1 4.
Rank

1 ..............

2 .............. 

3 .............. 

4 .............. 

5 ..............

6 ..............

7 ..............

8 ..............

9 ..............

10..............

State

California............

Texas ................. 

Idaho.................. 

Wyoming.............

Ohio...................

Illinois................

New York ............

Withdrawal of 

water, 19553

30,706

17,176 

15,425 

11,148 

11,014

10,756

10,101

9,879

8,884

7,456

Principal 

use

Irrigation

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Industry

Do.

Irrigation

Do.

Irrigation

In 6 of these 10, water is used principally for 

irrigation; the 6 include the top-ranking 4 

and account for 38 percent of the Nation's 

total use. The remaining 4 States use water 

principally for industry; they account for 17 

percent of the Nation's total use.

Wherein does the prospect that these uses 

will double by about 1980 cause us concern? 

>uperficial consideratiorTTh terms of Nationwide totals or averages might suggest, falsely, that no serious problems exist. Specifically, the United States receives about 30 

inches of rainfall yearly; this is the gross 

natural supply. Of this gross, about 70 percent or 21 inches returns to the atmosphere 

by evaporation and by transpiration from nonirrigated crop plants, forest trees, forage 

plants, and native vegetation. The residual 

9 inches constitutes the net supply available 

for man's use. Presently, about 6 inches 

continues to flow to the oceans. Only 3 inches 

is withdrawn by man for his use, and of this 

only about 1 inch is consumed. 4 Alone, these 

averages might be misconstrued, to indicate 

that even though present use were doubled 

about three-fourths of the natural net supply 

would remain unconsumed.

Actually, prospective problems of water 

supply are perplexing indeed. A principal 

causative factor is that the natural gross and 

net supplies are distributed most unevenly 

and greatly out of proportion to current and 

prospective demands. Specifically, among 12 

major drainage basins spanning the United 

States, gross supply (rainfall) ranges about 

from 51 to 10 inches, or from 170 to 33 percent of the Nation-wide mean. Net supply 

(runoff) ranges from about 19 inches to 1_ 

inch, or from 235 to 15 percent of the Nationwide mean. East of the Mississippi River,

8 In million gallons per day.

* Leopold, L. B., 1959, The nature of our water problems: Missouri Basin Inter-Agency Committee, Minutes of 109th meeting , 

P. 3.

net supply ranges from 50 percent of the 

gross in the north Atlantic Coast basins to 

about 35 percent in south Atlantic Coast basins. West of the Mississippi River, net supply ranges from nearly 60 percent of the 

gross in the Pacific Northwest to about 10 percent in the Missouri River, west Gulf Coast, 

Colorado River, and Great Basin areas.5

Withdrawals range from about 5 to 85 percent of runoff among the several major basins. Percentage of net supply committed to 

use is least in the south Atlantic Coast and 

Pacific Northwest basins. It is greatest by 

far in the Colorado River and Great Basin 

areas. There, even allowing for re-use, net 

supply is little more than reasonably sufficient in ordinary years and is deficient in the 

driest years. In many areas of concentrated 

use, both in these areas and elsewhere, the 

demand for water is beginning to exceed local 

net supply. In certain areas, the net local 

supply has been deficient chronically and 

present withdrawals in part are "mined" from 

ground-water storage. Thus, a basic future 

problem will be that of conveying water in 

large volumes from natural sources to places 

where it is desired. Not all the prospective 

deficiencies can be resolved by conveyance, 

within acceptable limits of cost. Disturbing 

corollaries of this are that in some areas 

economic development will be limited by 

availability of water; in certain present areas 

of water mining, economic depreciation may 

ensue ultimately; remaining areas must absorb much more than the Nationwide average 

in expanded water demand. Few areas can 

do so easily.

A second factor in our prospective concern 

is that net water supply varies greatly from 

year to year, season to season, and even from 

day to day. Its extremes, flood and drought, 

impose large damages to property and to 

crops. In few areas is the natural dry-season 

flow of streams equal to the local demand for 

water, either presently or prospectively. Up 

to some limit of economic feasibility that has 

not been reached as yet, the extremes and the 

variability of supply with time must be reduced by further regulation of streamflow and 

by thoughtful management of all water 

sources, on and under the land surface.

5 Piper, A. M., op. cit., p. 4 6.
The potential for management of groundwater reservoirs calls for emphasis. These 

are functional components in Nature's system 

for draining the land. They are recharged 

continually by water that infiltrates the land 

surface, in whatever amount the infiltrate 

exceeds the sum of evaporation, transpiration, and the retentive capacity of the soil. 

They convey water by slow movement. They 

discharge water from springs and seeps and 

so sustain the flow of streams when no rain 

falls. These reservoirs are a potential source 

separate and distinct from the streams.

Ground-water reservoirs contain the largest fresh-water storage in the Nation in the 

aggregate possibly in the order of 10 years' 

average rainfall or 35 years' average runoff. 

A small part, and only a small part of this 

storage is available for use by man.

Ground-water reservoirs now yield about 

19 percent of the Nation's withdrawals of 

fresh water. Although some have been and 

are being overdrawn, others are underdeveloped and could yield much more. Some can 

be operated to store, and later to yield, water 

that otherwise would escape as unused runoff 

or would be dissipated by evaporation and 

transpiration. In other words, some but not 

all can be operated to increase the supply of 

withdrawable water.

These two factors in our concern about 

water will have their strongest impact in industrial areas, where the expected demand 

for water is two and a half or three times 

that of the present. In contrast the expected 

water requirement for municipal and ruraldomestic supplies is about one and a half 

times that of the present; the expected requirement for irrigation supplies is about one 

and a third times.

Other aspects of water supply for industry 

are instructive. About 75 percent of such water is for cooling or heat exchange, and half 

of this for condensing the spent steam at 

steam-electric plants. Next in volume is water for washing, grading, or moving materials 

or products and for flushing wastes. For such 

uses, much of the water need not be high quality. A substantial and increasing percentage 

of the remaining industrial water must be 

virtually free of organic or mineral matter, 

acids, or gases. For example, feed water for 

the boilers of modern steam-electric plants

must be of very high quality to inhibit corrosion and formation of scale. Processed foods, 

beverages, many of the synthetics, and other 

commodities require water as a raw material. 

For many of these the water not only must be 

of high quality in general, but also must be 

virtually free of particular mineral substances that would impair grade or stability 

of the product.

Special emphasis on the synthetics is in 

order. Without exception, the products of 

synthesis require much more process water 

than the natural materials they replace for 

example, rayon and nylon much more than 

natural fibers, synthetic rubber much more 

than natural rubber, and so on. Many synthesized materials and products are superior 

in quality; we can expect only that greater 

and greater reliance will be placed on synthesized rather than natural materials. This 

is compounded by processes of synthesis for 

which the raw materials may be grown as a 

crop. But growing such crops will require 

either soil water or irrigation water. What 

is the end-point water requirement? A reasoned answer seems progressively more 

remote.

Preceding aspects of the industrial-water 

situation lead to the third and final factor in 

our concern about water namely, water quality. Desirable standards of public health and 

the requirements of industry both call for 

water of high chemical or bacteriologic purity, or both. Yet our major centers of population and industry create ever increasing 

quantities and kinds of toxins and pollutants 

that all too commonly have been discharged 

promiscuously and allowed to depreciate the 

usability of water sources. Apresent and expanding problem is that of improving'the quality of naturally inferior waters, abating and 

inhibiting pollution, and conveying wastes to 

thoroughly "insulated" disposal areas.

There are no panaceas for prospective 

water-supply stringencies. Improved management of land and forests, weather modification, and desalting of brackish waters or 

brines may help to alleviate the stringencies 

in part. As to weather modification, for 

example, "cloud seeding" may cause a small 

increase in rainfall at some particular place 

or time and to that extent may seem to increase the local water supply. However, not 

yet has it been demonstrated that the increase
would not have occurred naturally at another 

place or time. As to desalted brackish waters 

or brines, the cost now in prospect can compete only with that of the most costly of waters from conventional sources, and that 

where the desalted water can be produced 

within the area of use. The added cost of 

conveying desalted water from point of manufacture to a place of use that is either distant or at substantially higher altitude seems 

prohibitive for most potential uses within the 

foreseeable future.

Neither is the re a single and simple means 

of resolving the prospective stringencies. In 

part, new industry can and will go to uncommitted water sources, but others will be too 

much constrained by the established pattern 

of transportation routes and market areas. 

Some areas now in irrigated agriculture will 

convert to industry, and certain of these conversions will diminish the local requirement 

for water. Increasingly, metropolitan areas 

will find a reasonable balance between concentration and dispersal of population in relation to availability of water for those populations and all their enterprises. In general 

the Nation must learn, and heed, ways to extract more service from its known waters. 

Re-use of water must increase. The Nation 

must accept the higher cost of water that will 

ensue. Otherwise many areas will become 

water short, eventually if not within the next 

quarter-century.

Two examples of re-use by industry are 

noteworthy. Most of the petroleum refining 

industry uses about 20 gallons of water for 

each gallon of product. The large refinery of 

the Humble Oil Co. at Baytown, Tex^, in effect 

recirculates its water 15 times. 6 The plant 

of the Kaiser Steel Corp. at Fontana, Calif., 

recirculates its water and, according to its 

report, requires about 1,200 gallons of makeup water per ton of steel produced. The 

industry-wide average is about 65,000 gallons 

of water per ton of steel. These two examples 

are from plants where water is not available 

in abundance. They are extremes; their 

ratios of recirculation cannot reasonably be 

expected of all industry. Further, repeated 

re-use of water depreciates its quality and 

compounds the problems of water-quality 

control that have been outlined. It seems

Paley, W. S., and others, 1952, Resources for freedom: President's Materials Policy Commission Kept., vol. 5, p. 94.

likely, however, that a considerable part of 

the water required by the expected two-to 

three-fold expansion of industry can be provided by re-use at some increase in cost.

A large portion of the fluid wastes from 

municipalities and industries can be reclaimed feasibly, especially for uses that do 

not require water of the highest purity. Certainly, the Nation cannot indefinitely dispose 

of its wastes merely by keeping them dilute 

and discharging them promiscuously.

Beyond these measures of conservation in 

use, more and more we shall face the necessity of using each natural water source 

stream, lake, or ground-water reservoir 

at its optimum perennial yield. Streamflow 

will be regulated comprehensively by impounding water now passing to the oceans. 

Commonly, the regulating facilities will perforce be planned and operated as a single, 

integrated mechanism in and for each drainage basin. All this we must learn to do without unreasonable prejudice to individual uses 

that may be, in part, mutually exclusive.

For water-supply management of the scope 

implied, we are informed all too poorly. To 

cite only a suggestive few examples, we have 

incomplete or only rudimentary information 

on the geochemistry of natural waters that 

is, on the relation between dissolved mineral 

constituents of the waters and geologic features of their source terranes; on variability 

of streamflow in relation to land forms, landsurface permeabilities, and other terrane features; on the "geometry" of alluvial stream 

channels at equilibrium with various rates of 

flow; or on the principles of sediment transport by streams. These areas of deficient 

information, and many others, offer an exceedingly broad field for research that will 

test severely the capability and imagination 

of geologist, engineer, and workers in numerous allied disciplines.

In such management we shall perforce tamper ever more deeply with Nature's watersupply mechanism, the complex "hydrologic 

cycle." We shall do so with the hazard of effects more disadvantageous than the advantages sought. Our policies of water-management must be technically sound. As the basis 

for decisions on such policies we have a fair 

store of statistical records on the climatic 

and hydrologic variables. We could use more
such records but there is no ground for hope 

that we can obtain them at every point and for 

every environment with which we shall be 

concerned. Far more fundamental is a present 

need to search deeply into the records now 

available, and to extract from them a more 

intimate knowledge of the many vagaries in 

the hydrologic cycle. Only so can we interpolate and extrapolate soundly from current 

records to anticipate water-supply problems. 

To prospective questions in this field, reasoned answers will rest with the earth scientist (using the latter term in a broad sense).

One example suffices to illustrate this 

point. There is suggestive evidence that, with 

a periodicity in the order of a century or possibly a few centuries, climate "swings" between extremes of warm-dry and cool-wet. 

How great and how regular is this swing? 

Rather than a "swing," is the variation a 

progressive trend more toward one of the 

extremes than the other? Where does our 

current environment fall in relation to the 

extremes? Answers to these questions would 

have a most practical application the expected stringencies in water supply may 

prove to be either more or less severe than 

implied in this paper, to a substantial degree. 

Answers, or their orders of magnitude, might 

be found now through broadly based rather 

than overly specialized research.

Boldly conceived water-management works 

on a large scale, even a grand scale, will become numerous. These must be adapted 

soundly to their engineering and geologic environments; the skills of the engineer, the 

hydrologist, the geologist, and other specialists must be blended intimately if sound plans 

are to result. Three diverse examples will 

be outlined.

The so-called California water plan probably is fairly well known to all of you. In 

simplest terms it proposes to impound water 

that is surplus to expected requirements in 

the northern part of the State, and to convey 

that surplus southward to areas that are outreaching their local sources. Large reservoirs and dams, also uncommonly long canals 

and tunnels are among the component works. 

Applied earth science must answer the obvious 

questions as to stability of foundations and 

cuts, availability of construction materials, 

and the like.

In southeastern Idaho, the Bureau of Reclamation is studying the feasibility of recharging the highly pervious basalt of that 

area from the Snake River during years of 

excess runoff, and of withdrawing the detained 

runoff by pumping from wells during dry periods. The scheme is sound in principle but 

unprecedented in scale. The subsidiary problems in the field of earth science are just 

beginning to emerge.

As its flow has been depleted by use, the 

lower reach of the Colorado River no longer 

can transport to the Gulf of California all the 

sediment load. De-silting works and channel 

dredging have afforded local temporary relief, but may be inadequate for the long haul. 

Channel aggradation is evident along the 

reach of the river in Mexico, and effects adverse to the United States are increasing. 

Under the artificial regimen created by man, 

channel form is no longer in equilibrium with 

river flows. Pressure is mounting for a stabilized channel, but minimum outflow to the 

Gulf. No adequate plan to this end exists, but 

is becoming increasingly urgent. Such a 

plan can be derived only from applied earth 

science.

All three of these examples have aspects 

that call for serious reflection. First, the 

measures adequate for resolving the watermanagement problem outreach the competence or jurisdiction of private enterprises 

and are region-wide, State-wide, national, or 

even international in scope. We can expect 

only that the necessary scope of watermanagement works will enlarge rather than 

shrink. Second, the works that are planned 

or in prospect run counter, in some degree, 

to the commonly accepted "rights" of individuals in the use of water. In effect, the plans 

involve extensive "pooling" of individual 

rights, with those rights made whole from a 

common managed source rather than from 

individual sources. We can expect only that 

such pooling and then making whole will become more and more necessary.

Certain implications of these expected 

trends warrant emphasis. The earth scientist 

concerned about or involved in prospective 

problems of water-supply management will 

find his professional perspective tempered 

by, and adapted to, complexly interwined considerations of economics and sociology. This
need not be a deterrent; it should be accepted 

as a challenge.

Water is essential to life but has not been 

valued accordingly. It has been taken for 

granted, and in the commodity market of the 

United States it usually is priced at less than 

10 cents a ton ($135 an acre-foot). With little 

protest we pay far more, by weight, for

disposing of household trash. This disparity 

between implied "value" and present cost 

points up an emerging fact not much longer 

can we use water once, pollute it in some degree, and throw away a polluted residue 

which is two-thirds of the whole. The prospective water-supply situation can be managed and deserves our most serious attention.