This is because the quality of water affects the quantity of the water consumed. Most ground or surface waters are satisfactory for livestock. When the drinking water for cattle is not satisfactory, it is most often due to excessive salinity. Salinity is measured as the concentration of dissolved salts of various kinds. Other factors such as nitrate content, alkalinity or high levels of single toxic elements occasionally cause problems.
All waters contain dissolved substances.
Most of these are ions of inorganic salts. The most predominant of these are calcium, magnesium and sodium chloride, sulfate and bicarbonate. Occasionally the levels of salts will be high enough to cause harmful osmotic effects that result in poor performance, illness or even death in animals forced to drink them. Various salts have slightly different effects but these differences normally are of no practical significance. While sulfates are laxative and cause some diarrhea, their damage to animals seems no greater than that of chlorides.