Henderson, Nevada, United States

These constructions show the increasing spread of suburban zones in North America well. About 149 miles (450 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles in the middle of a desert plain, Las Vegas, the town of all excesses, used to get over 50.000 new inhabitants a year before the financial crisis. Nowadays, in the Clark County, which includes Las Vegas agglomeration, 125.000 houses are empty that is 15% of the housing. Despite very weak pluviometry (barely more than 100 millimetres a year) Las Vegas attracts about 40 million tourists and visitors per year. The visitors drawn to the city by the casinos also want to have access to pools andgardens as well as golf courses. Some of these require 5.000 cubic meters of water a day for watering. This is the equivalent of the consumption of a town with 12.000 inhabitants. In average, 70% of all potable water consumption per inhabitant is destinated to watering the garden. Creating these urban extensions and leisure sites without any consideration of environmental conditions has caused the diversion of water resources: dams, canals, waterworks etc. The Colorado river, which supplies the entire American southeast is drying out and some years it doesn’t even get to the sea. The river’s and the delta’s ecosystems have seriously deteriorated. Americans are insatiable water consumers and each consumes an average of 217.000 liters of domestic water per year. Its indirect consumption – including the necessary water for producing food, goods and services a year – is of 2.840 m3, the highest in the world.