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Do you take your drinking water for granted?

Water remains the most vital resource for humans on the planet, and yet, its preservation faces some major challenges every day, especially pressures from overconsumption, extreme weather and a variety of other factors. With the population of the world continuing to steadily grow, demand for water is expected to significantly skyrocket in the coming years. Climate change has also helped exacerbate stresses on critical reservoirs. 

In the U.S., California's harsh drought has put attention on how rising temperatures are putting strains on municipal water supplies. The time period between late 2011 and 2014 was the state's driest since record-keeping began. At one point, in 2014, the arid weather dried up tap water supplies for hundreds of people living in rural San Joaquin Valley.

(MORE: 50 Destinations With the Clearest, Bluest Waters in the World)

A recent study showed that declining snowpack, affected by dry weather, could critically imperil water supplies in many western states. "I view snowpacks and glaciers as insurance policies, in that they store water in the wet season and discharge it in dry season thus maintaining water flow down stream for municipal water supplies, irrigation and hydroelectric power," Lonnie Thompson, climate scientist at Ohio State University told weather.com in 2015. "They also serve insurance polices during times of more extended droughts (glaciers more so than snowpack)."

Incidents of severe water shortages on the rise have many people increasingly worried about how secure their water supplies are in their own backyards. As municipalities around the country continue to work to step up their efforts to stockpile water for their citizens, we decided to look at some facts about our most valuable resource — how we're using it now, and how it might be threatened in the future.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Shasta Lake, California, Drought