And that place is not where we want / need the water to go. I.e into the plants moved elsewhere and into the air carried away. It depletes these waterways
Correspondingly, our hydrologic modelling reveals that cattle-feed irrigation is the leading driver of flow depletion in one-third of all western US sub-watersheds; cattle-feed irrigation accounts for an average of 75% of all consumptive use in these 369 sub-watersheds. During drought years (that is, the driest 10% of years), more than one-quarter of all rivers in the western US are depleted by more than 75% during summer months (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 2) and cattle-feed irrigation is the largest water use in more than half of these heavily depleted rivers
And that place is not where we want / need the water to go. I.e into the plants moved elsewhere and into the air carried away. It depletes these waterways
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1064&context=wffdocs