Water conservation

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Water conservation refers to reducing use of fresh water, through technological or social methods. The goals of water conservation efforts include:

Sustainability - To ensure availability for future generations, the withdrawal of fresh water from an ecosystem should not exceed its natural replacement rate.
Energy conservation - Water pumping, delivery and wastewater treatment facilities consume a significant amount of energy. In some regions of the world (for example, California <ref>California Energy Commission, "California's Water-Energy Relationship" (November 2005), p.8</ref>) over 10% of total electricity consumption is devoted to water management.
Habitat conservation - Minimizing human water use helps to preserve fresh water habitats for local wildlife and migrating waterfowl, as well as reducing the need to build new dams and other water diversion infrastructure.

1 Social solutions
2 Technological solutions
3 Catchment management
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Social solutions

Higher pricing of water, perhaps through the removal of subsidies, is sometimes proposed as a way of encouraging more efficient use of water.^{[citation needed]}

Water conservations campaigns, such as Palathulli in Kerala, India, or the recent campaigns in Sydney, Australia, can be effective.

[edit] Technological solutions

efficient shower heads (sometimes called energy-efficient shower heads as they also use less energy, due to less water being heated).^{[citation needed]}
wastewater reuse or recycling, for example:
- reuse of graywater for flushing toilets or for the garden, or
- recycling of wastewater through purification at a water treatment plant. See also Wastewater#Reuse
low-flush toilets, composting toilets and waterless urinals can have a very large impact, particularly in Western societies, as conventional Western toilets use large volumes of water.