Swimming pools and lavish gardens of the rich are driving water shortages, study says

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A new research study says that maintaining backyard pools, like this one pictured in Los Angeles in August, 2005, are one way that rich city dwellers are over-consuming water.

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Swimming pools, flower gardens, indoor fountains — and the urbanites who can afford them — are big factors behind the increasingly dire water crises plaguing cities, an international research team says.

Published in the journal Nature Sustainability, a new study found socioeconomic disparity to be just as influential as climate change and population growth when it comes to explaining why the water supply in so many cities is shrinking.