14 CONSERVATION OF GROUND WATER 



arid parts of the country. It will set the limit on the use that 

 man can make of the other resources, and thus ultimately on 

 the density of population and the standards of living that can 

 be sustained in those regions. In the regions of abundant rain- 

 fall, however, water should not be the first of the natural re- 

 sources to falter. Nature generally provides a surplus of water 

 in those regions that flows to the sea, and this surplus can be 

 put to many uses. Even here local shortages of water may de- 

 velop, because of failure to pattern the development and use 

 in accordance with the availability of the resources. Our pres- 

 ent knowledge of water resources, though far from complete, 

 is enough to justify the assertion that considerably more de- 

 velopment can be made of the water supplies in humid regions 

 without exhausting the supplies or ruining them for others. 



