Water used by the site for any purpose. It is important to distinguish the different concepts of total and net water use.
Total water use (or Total Water Withdrawals) is the total amount of incoming water supply. However, a proportion of this water is usually returned to the local or regional water cycle. Water may be returned as irrigation losses or where wastewater is treated to a high quality and returned to a nearby water body. This can offset some of the impact of the original water abstractions.
Net water use (also called comsumptive water use) is the amount that is not returned locally. Losses may be from evapotranspiration (in agriculture), evaporative losses from cooling systems or reservoirs, or water that leaves a manufacturing site in finished product (for example in soft drinks and household cleaning fluids) Net water use is the most important for considering impacts within the catchment, and often significantly less than total use.
