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Uses of saline water

In today's world we are all more aware of the need to conserve fresh water. With the ever-growing demand for water by our growing population, it makes sense to try to find more uses for the abundant saline water supplies that we have. By looking at our national water-use numbers we can see what the Nation uses saline water for and also how much it uses. Here are some pie charts that show what we used saline water for in 1990:

Pie charts showing which categories of water use use saline water

The bar chart below shows the trend of fresh and saline water use from 1955 to 1990. Look at the percentages above the green bars - they are the percentage of total water use in the United States that comes from saline water. Notice how the usage of saline water has risen from 8% in 1955 to 17% in 1990. Evidently, we are finding more uses for saline water.

Bar chart of saline water usage, 1955-1990



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The URL for this page is http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/salineuses.html
Comments? Contact hperlman@usgs.gov
Last Modified: Jun 21, 1999
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