Nature has always had the capacity to clean and renew water resources in underground aquifers, rivers, and lakes so that mankind did not have to worry about cleaning and treating water after it had been used. Nature had a self-sustaining and self-optimizing system for Renewable Water.
The Industrial Revolution drove rapid population growth, concentrated populations via urbanization and increased per capita water consumption because for public health reasons, piped water to the home for bathing daily and water-borne sanitation was a necessity in high-density urban environments.
Despite the introduction of wastewater treatment works, residual contaminants in treated wastewater have been one of the main drivers of the degradation by eutrophication of global freshwater resources over the last half-century.