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It means different things in different places, depending on where the water was sourced and the counterfactual of what would otherwise have happened to it. For example if you source surface water that evaporates, and the local rainshed feeds that watershed, then it's virtually closed-loop. If you're pumping fossil water out of an aquifer, and it rains over the ocean, then it's the opposite.


I suppose in some desert-ish climate the extra moisture given to the air doesn't rain down nearby but moves with the wind somewhere far away where it rains. So there might be an effect of using locally precious water even if it's a closed loop on a continent level.




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