Cattle water consumption should be meaningless. If a cow is drinking water from a surface water source and breathing/sweating/peeing it out in a pasture, that's the same process that would be happening if humans didn't exist.
It isn't meaningless due to industrial farming. Chickens and pigs are even more likely to be industrially farmed than cattle are.
If we lowered our meat consumption by about 90% then we wouldn't need to industrially farm meat and the 10% would be much more ecologically justifiable.
Then the problem is that the soy we've replaced our meat with is industrially farmed...
The problem is the assumption that cows (and other similarly intensive animals) would exist in the same quantity. You'd expect something like 5x less cow-like biomass without people intervening.
It isn't meaningless due to industrial farming. Chickens and pigs are even more likely to be industrially farmed than cattle are.
If we lowered our meat consumption by about 90% then we wouldn't need to industrially farm meat and the 10% would be much more ecologically justifiable.
Then the problem is that the soy we've replaced our meat with is industrially farmed...