Drinking water comes from surface water and ground water. Large-scale water supply systems tend to rely on surface water resources, and smaller water systems tend to use ground water. Including the approximately 23 million Americans who use ground water as a private drinking water source, slightly more than half of the population receives its drinking water from ground water sources. Surface water includes rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.
Ground water is pumped from wells that are drilled into aquifers.
Aquifers are geologic formations that contain water. The quantity of water in an aquifer and the water produced by a well depend on the nature of the rock, sand, or soil in the aquifer where the well withdraws water. Your water utility or your public works department can tell you the source of your public drinking water supply. Such systems may be owned by homeowner associations, investor-owned water companies, local governments, and others. Water that does not come from a public water supply, and which serves one or only a few homes, is called a private supply.