Is the cow for the burger you eat in California grown in California?

It's a good idea to be aware in general, but local under-supply isn't necessarily a helpful metric, I think. We've had the argument in Northern Germany that we should use less water, and it often went along with reports about droughts in Spain. But we're not Spain, we have plenty of rain (though it's not always equally distributed over the year).

Needless to say that we're not building a pipeline to transport the saved water to Spain. At the same time, we now have to regularly flush the sewers because we don't have enough "natural" flow and we have more issues with rising ground water damaging building foundations.

actually, we are currently in drought conditions some years in a row in Germany. Forests are dying and the groundwater is exhausted. But hey, it's all the media making up a story.

> But hey, it's all the media making up a story.

I'm on a diet, please don't put words into my mouth. There are months that we have too little rain, but we're far from continuous drought conditions. We're still getting 50+ liters/sqm per month.

Germany is in drought conditions.

https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=37937

That's a different issue entirely from ground water though. The droughts mentioned are surface water, not ground water. The lower water usage does affect ground water levels but not surface water, because we're not pumping up surface water. That's not a specifically German issue, many regions that have less industry now than they had 60 years ago are dealing with the same problem.

The surface water strongly affects farms and forests, but we won't change that by using less ground water (unless the hope is to have the ground water climb to -1m everywhere, at which point we're living in a bog). Additionally, rising ground water might have nasty side effects for plants, as salt in the earth will also be transported up.

Surface water retention is about management, not about offsetting that with savings. We do get plenty of surface water, but much of it will be "wasted" because it'll cause floods. Aggressive diking and straightening of rivers does play a part there, and we'll be wise to adapt to changing weather patterns and climate.

It’s worthwhile noting what the water lifecycle going through a cow looks like.

If it’s grazing on natural pastureland vs irrigated vs animal feed and what the water lifecycle looks like. The water doesn’t disappear but it can have impact if it’s drawn out from limited aquifers that don’t get replenished quickly.

The water doesn’t get “spent” though, unless you manage to turn it into some toxic sludge (which I imagine US farms do).

In the usual resource lifecycle of a cattle farm, that water goes right back where it came from - 99% is “green water”.

Animal urine and feces are not clean water, if you only have a couple of animals it doesn't matter but at a large scale you need to treat it before releasing it into the wild unless you want to taint the water supply. Of course the water molecules don't disappear, but that's not the point. There's plenty of water on earth, but only a tiny fraction is clean enough for human consumption. If you pour your bottle of mineral water into the ocean, the water doesn't disappear but you still effectively wasted it.

>you wouldn’t have a farm away from a water source.

That's sort of the problem actually. Many aquifers are tainted to various levels because of farming. We need clean water, not cow piss.

This is only a problem for mass-scale industrial farming - that is the thing to be avoided instead of looking for fixes for its consequences.