By Matthias Petry

W hen you hear words like "little precipitation," "mostly desert and mountains" or "extreme temperature difference," what do you think of?

Probably some place like the Sahara desert in northern Africa or the Gobi desert in Central Asia. And yes, you are right. However, these characteristics also apply to Utah. It is a desert after all. And what is the main characteristic of a desert? Yes, that's right; you don't find too much water there.

But still, we seem to have plenty of water. Well, at least we are using it as if we had. Just take a quick look through your neighborhood. If you go for a walk at dawn you will probably see countless sprinklers, ensuring that their owner's lawn and flowers keep their bright, shiny colors even during the hottest and driest periods of summer. They are doing it by flooding the lawn, flower patches and sometimes even the street, using (wasting?) gallon over gallon of precious drinking water. And that is just the most obvious example.

Don't even get me started on the many occasions water is wasted indoors.

But do we really have such enormous resources so that we can use our water so easily? I don't think so. Let us just take a quick look at some basic facts:

• Utah receives less precipitation than the rest of the western United States (about 13 inches per year) except Nevada.
• Despite that, Utahns consume more water per day per person (293 gallons) than any other state in the United States except, again, Nevada.
• 7.5 million acre-feet of water can be stored in Utah's surface reservoirs; 6 million are used per year (one acre-foot equals the annual water supply for an average family of five).

These are definitely issues we should be concerned about. They are not yet a reason to freak out, but we should be more careful what we use our precious water resources for and above all how we use them.

So what can you we do? One of the easiest ways to conserve water is watering your lawn properly. For example, at this time of the year it does not need more than half an hour every six days.

You can also save much water in your bathroom, e.g. by checking the toilet for leaks, installing water-saving shower heads, faucets and toilets, and not using your toilet for a wastebasket. For many other ways to save water and for additional information on the water situation in Utah, check out http://www.water.utah.gov.

These are a few simple ways to make our resources last a little longer. Don't do it just for yourself or your kids, but for all future generations to come.

Just don't forget: Utah is still and will always be (at least for the next couple of centuries) a desert, and water is still one of the most precious and limited resources we have.