Water knowledge questions had to do with how many Americans are burdened by the cost of water, how many get their water shut off, and the functions wetlands serve. On average, people answered less than half of those types of knowledge questions correctly.

Trust in Food, a Farm Journal initiative aimed at empowering farmers to adopt conservation practices, conducted a similar survey, gathering responses from over 900 farmers in 43 states, representing production in all nine of the USDA agriculture resource regions. The idea was to see where farmers mirrored the general population of the U.S., and where they might differ.

“Farmers do understand hydrologic cycles,” Kinsie Rayburn, Program Officer at Trust in Food, found. They have a high level of understanding how wetlands function, where rain water goes, and the source of the water they use in their day-to-day lives.