Youth and Water

Each person who uses water can help protect sources of drinking water.

Sources of water are surface water and groundwater. Surface water includes the water that you can readily see - lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands. Groundwater includes underground aquifers where water fills the tiny spaces between sand, gravel or rock.

These two sources are connected. Water can soak into the surface and down to the aquifer. The groundwater in the aquifer can move along until it comes back to the surface as a spring or in the bottom of a river or lake. The whole trip can take several months or even hundreds of years.

What we do on the land can affect the quality of water that we drink. Through the water cycle, all water is recycled from earth to the air and back to the earth. If we use more water than we allow to be recycled, then we can have a shortage.