INCREASING REQUIREMENTS 217 



"adverse users" in the sense that they not only compete with 

 man for the water but wrest from him the land which he would 

 prefer to use for other purposes. To qualify the term "con- 

 sumptive use" as widely applied, there have of necessity sprung 

 up adjectives as "beneficial" or "nonbeneficial" consumptive 

 use. The writer feels that "consumptive use" should be 

 restricted to the consumption of water that has some recog- 

 nized benefit to mankind and that it should not be extended 

 indiscriminately to all transpiration. Admittedly many plants 

 have sufficient value for holding the soil in place or for aes- 

 thetic appeal or other purposes to warrant classifying their 

 transpiration as a "consumptive use," but man should be the 

 judge. 



The water that returns to the atmosphere without benefit- 

 ing man might better be termed "consumptive waste." Par- 

 ticularly in the arid closed basins of the West, where all the 

 water from precipitation returns ultimately to the atmos- 

 phere, it is important to distinguish the consumptive waste 

 wherever it occurs from consumptive use. Whether the waste 

 occurs by water-loving vegetation or by wasteful irrigation 

 practices, or by evaporation from surface ponds and reservoirs, 

 it is water which might instead be diverted to beneficial use. 

 Within these closed basins such diversion is the only way to 

 derive additional water supplies. In many other parts of the 

 country there is significant consumptive waste available for 

 development whenever supplies become insufficient, and this 

 waste should be identified and segregated in inventories of 

 water resources. The cost of diverting that water to a beneficial 

 use, of course, may be so great as to be economically unfeasible 

 in many areas. 



NONCONSUMPTIVE USE AND DISPOSAL 



Water used without being consumed may remain in the 

 stream, lake, or reservoir of which it is a part, notably in the 

 case of navigation or recreation use. Otherwise it joins either 

 a surface or subsurface water body which may or may not be 

 the one from which it was diverted. Since the water was 



