Replacing thirsty turf with native plants cuts down on our biggest need for water.

RODALE NEWS, MADISON, WI—It's an oft-repeated adage that water will be the oil of the twenty-first century. Yet most of us associate the world water crisis with developing countries, where lack of access to clean drinking water means that citizens walk 10 miles with heavy barrels to contaminated creeks and rivers, just so they have something to drink, or with states in the Southwest fighting over access to the Colorado River. But the problem is much bigger than we realize, and it's growing.

At the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists, Mary Ann Dickinson, the executive director for the Chicago-based nonprofit Alliance for Water Efficiency, tried to drive home the urgency of the issue for people in Madison and Miami alike. "The U.S. and Canada are the most water-abundant nations in the world," she said, "but the government estimates that 40 of our 50 states will see water shortages in the next four years."

THE DETAILS: Americans are among the heaviest users of water in the developed world. Hydrologists estimate that we use anywhere from 100 to 250 gallons of water per person per day, most of which goes to our lawns. By comparison, Australians use 36. Many of us have no idea how much we use; Dickinson cited a survey of Oakland, CA, residents who, when asked how much water they thought they used, estimated their daily water use at 25 gallons per house per day. The problem, she said, is our Costco pricing mentality for water. "The more you use, the cheaper it gets," she noted.

We can't point the finger entirely at homeowners either. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that some areas lose as much as 50 percent of their daily water supply to eroding infrastructure. Think of it as a traffic jam: The more cars that are on the road, the more likely the pavement is to crack and wear more quickly. Nationwide, a loss of 10 to 20 percent is considered normal. That means valuable water that's leaving our watersheds never even gets where it's going.