Next Water management in the United States has traditionally focused on manipulating the country's supplies of freshwater to meet the needs of users. Increasing development costs, capital shortages, government fiscal restraint, diminishing sources of water supply, polluted water, and a growing concern for the environment have forced water managers and planners to begin to rethink traditional approaches to management, and to experiment with new ones. Attention now and in the future will be centered on optimizing the use of existing surface-water projects rather than on the further development of large storage reservoirs and major aqueducts, on developing more efficient water application techniques, and on developing water conservation measures such as lining irrigation canals and installing more efficient plumbing fixtures in homes and office buildings.
Agriculture accounts for the bulk of U.S. water use.
The average American consumes 1,500 pounds of food each year. 1,000 gallons of water are required to grow and process each pound of that food. This means that in this country, in a single year, an average of 1.5 million gallons of water is invested in the food eaten by just one person . Inadequate supplies of water and often-conflicting plans for their use can lead to hard questions. Such questions have too often been answered with convenience and short-term gain as the determining factors.