The number one cause of water pollution globally is for agricultural activities. This includes agriculture, hydroponic, aquaculture, and aquaculture water use.
What’s shocking is that this isn’t the first time the issue of water use has come up in connection with the water wars. The United Nations has issued several reports on the situation of water use in the 21st century, and one of them suggests that this issue is at the center of the water wars. The report says that “the use of water for irrigation… to water crops… and to irrigate residential areas… has increased significantly in the last 40 years.
Although there are several obvious reasons why this increase in water use is happening, it seems to me that the main reason is that we are using more water than we can use. We know we aren’t being wasteful because we don’t have to go to the expense of importing water. However, if you want to use more water than you can actually use for food production, then you are not being wasteful.
The problem is there is not enough water available to us to sustain our ever expanding population. The problem is the food production industry is increasing at a rapid rate. In the US this trend has been going on for several decades, and has resulted in a substantial increase in food consumption on a per capita basis. The problem is that we are importing more water to grow our food than we are using.