With Earth Day Coming Up, Its Time to Test Your Water Knowledge.
Maggie Morales
True or False. It is not worth it to try and collect the water that falls on your home during a rainstorm.
False.
If a house sits on a half-acre lot and one inch of rain falls on that lot, if collected, this would be more than 13,500 gallons of water, enough to take 339 baths.
True or False. Hawaii is the wettest state in the U.S.
True
In parts of Hawaii, it rains more than three hundred days per year, dropping twenty feet of water.
True or False. Arizona is the driest state in the country.
False
The driest state in the U.S. is Nevada. It’s followed by Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming. This can vary a bit each year. However, these are the five states considered the driest in the country.
True or False. Most of the drinking water in the U.S. comes from Lake Mead, outside of Las Vegas.
True
Lake Mead provides water for Las Vegas and Arizona, California, and parts of Mexico. The big concern about Lake Mead is that it has been drying up for more than a decade. That’s why there is a rush to find ways to access water from the Colorado River, which has less water than it did a century ago, primarily due to climate change.
True or False. Water efficiency and water conservation are the same things.
False
Water conservation is short-lived. People and organizations conserve water during a drought, for instance, but return to their previous water using habits after the drought has passed.
Water efficiency is a long-term reduction in water consumption. For instance, installing restroom fixtures that use less water than older models or waterless urinals that use no water at all.
True or False. About one-third of the U.S. is now experiencing some level of drought.
False.
Half the country is experiencing drought conditions, which are expected to worsen this summer.
True or False. Most of the water used in a facility is used to irrigate vegetation.
True-ish
This has historically been true. But as more facilities replace water- dependent vegetation with natural vegetation that typically uses less water, restrooms are becoming the area where most water is consumed. This is primarily due to flushing toilets and conventional urinals.