The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Use Program is responsible for compiling and disseminating the Nation's water-use data. Working in cooperation with local, State, and Federal agencies, the USGS has published an estimate of water use in the United States every 5 years, beginning in 1950. These 5-year compilations contain water-use estimates that are aggregated to the county level in the United States. This USGS data release contains summaries of method codes used in the 2015 national compilation of public supply, self-supplied domestic, thermoelectric, and irrigation water-use data. This data release also contains the county-level water-use estimates that support the evaluations in Luukkonen and others (2021). Finally, this data release contains summaries of regional medians and interquartile ranges from 1985 to 2015 that were used to highlight areas of unexpected variability, consistency and/or potential values that warrant further investigation. This data release supports the following publication: Luukkonen, C.L., Belitz, K., Sullivan, S.L., and Sargent, P., 2021, Factors affecting uncertainty of public supply, self-supplied domestic, irrigation, and thermoelectric water-use data, 1985-2015-evaluation of information sources, estimation methods, and data variability: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5082, 78 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20215082.

This data release contains Mann-Kendall trend results (p-values and Theil-Sen slope values) of water use data in either 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC08) or Van Metre hydrologic regions across the conterminous United States (CONUS) for the period 2000-2020. Trends are computed for 7 timesteps: annual, winter (Dec, Jan, Feb), spring (Mar, Apr, May), summer (Jun, Jul, Aug), fall (Sep, Oct, Nov), high (Apr-Sep), and low (Oct-Mar) from three monthly HUC12 water-use datasets: public supply (Luukkonen, and others, 2023), irrigation (Martin, and others, 2023; Haynes and others, 2023), and thermoelectric (Galanter, and others, 2023; Gorman and others, 2023). Trends are computed on withdrawals, consumptive use, and the ratio of consumptive use to total withdrawal types for each of the three water use categories. In addition, trends were calculated for all withdrawals across the three categories (summing HUC12 datasets). Trends in thermoelectric data and all withdrawals are limited to the period 2008-2020. In addition to the trends data in “trends_modelled_wateruse.csv”, this dataset includes several files in the “trends.zip” folder that were used to download modelled output data, calculate trends (volumetric and Regional Kendall), and visualize trends across water-use categories and hydrologic units.

This data release contains Mann-Kendall trend results (p-values and Theil-Sen slope values) of water use data in either 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC08) or Van Metre hydrologic regions across the conterminous United States (CONUS) for the period 2000-2020. Trends are computed for 7 timesteps: annual, winter (Dec, Jan, Feb), spring (Mar, Apr, May), summer (Jun, Jul, Aug), fall (Sep, Oct, Nov), high (Apr-Sep), and low (Oct-Mar) from three monthly HUC12 water-use datasets: public supply (Luukkonen, and others, 2023), irrigation (Martin, and others, 2023; Haynes and others, 2023), and thermoelectric (Galanter, and others, 2023; Gorman and others, 2023). Trends are computed on withdrawals, consumptive use, and the ratio of consumptive use to total withdrawal types for each of the three water use categories. In addition, trends were calculated for all withdrawals across the three categories (summing HUC12 datasets). Trends in thermoelectric data and all withdrawals are limited to the period 2008-2020. In addition to the trends data in “trends_modelled_wateruse.csv”, this dataset includes several files in the “trends.zip” folder that were used to download modelled output data, calculate trends (volumetric and Regional Kendall), and visualize trends across water-use categories and hydrologic units.

The datasets in this data release contain the results of an analysis of the U.S. Geological Survey's historical water-use data from 1985 to 2015. Data were assessed to determine the top category of water use by volume. Data from groundwater, surface water, and total water (groundwater plus surface water) use were parsed by water type, and the top category of use by county or the geographic region or local government equivalent to a county (for example, parishes in Louisiana) was determined. There are two sets of results provided, one for the "Priority" categories of water use and the second for all categories of water use. "Priority" categories are irrigation, public supply, and thermoelectric power and comprise 90 percent of all water use nationwide. In addition to the priority categories, the remaining categories of water use are as follows: aquaculture, domestic, industrial, livestock, and mining. Water-use data historically have been compiled at the county level every 5 years as part of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Use Science Project. In 2020 the U.S. Geological Survey began transitioning the collection of water-use data from every 5 years to an annual collection, from county level to hydrologic unit code (HUC) 12, and to a model-based approach. To assist in the transition, an assessment of the current (2022) historical water-use data was done by the Water-Use Gap Analysis Project.

The datasets in this data release contain the results of an analysis of the U.S. Geological Survey's historical water-use data from 1985 to 2015. Data were assessed to determine the top category of water use by volume. Data from groundwater, surface water, and total water (groundwater plus surface water) use were parsed by water type, and the top category of use by county or the geographic region or local government equivalent to a county (for example, parishes in Louisiana) was determined. There are two sets of results provided, one for the "Priority" categories of water use and the second for all categories of water use. "Priority" categories are irrigation, public supply, and thermoelectric power and comprise 90 percent of all water use nationwide. In addition to the priority categories, the remaining categories of water use are as follows: aquaculture, domestic, industrial, livestock, and mining. Water-use data historically have been compiled at the county level every 5 years as part of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Use Science Project. In 2020 the U.S. Geological Survey began transitioning the collection of water-use data from every 5 years to an annual collection, from county level to hydrologic unit code (HUC) 12, and to a model-based approach. To assist in the transition, an assessment of the current (2022) historical water-use data was done by the Water-Use Gap Analysis Project.

The U.S. Geological Survey maintains national data bases of water-use information. The data are collected and compiled every five years for each State, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. County, state, and national water-use estimates may be downloaded from the National Water Information System Web (NWISWeb) interface, Water Data for the Nation, by selecting the Water Use button or data category pull-down. Data on NWISWeb represent the current best estimates, and may have been revised from previous publications. Data available from the USGS County Water-Use generally reflect the published report, and may have been revised in subsequent analyses. Note: State-level data from 1950-1980 and watershed data are not available on NWISWeb, but they can be downloaded USGS County Water-Use Data link.

The U.S. Geological Survey maintains national data bases of water-use information. The data are collected and compiled every five years for each State, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. County, state, and national water-use estimates may be downloaded from the National Water Information System Web (NWISWeb) interface, Water Data for the Nation, by selecting the Water Use button or data category pull-down. Data on NWISWeb represent the current best estimates, and may have been revised from previous publications. Data available from the USGS County Water-Use generally reflect the published report, and may have been revised in subsequent analyses. Note: State-level data from 1950-1980 and watershed data are not available on NWISWeb, but they can be downloaded USGS County Water-Use Data link.

This data release contains results from a simple monthly water budget that includes water supply and consumptive use for thermoelectric, irrigation, and public supply for 12-digit Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC12) across the conterminous United States for water years 2010-2020. These results were produced using an analysis pipeline that ingests water supply, consumptive use, and routing information and accumulates and routes the water balance through the HUC12 network (Miller and others, 2024; https://doi.org/10.5066/P14MPRDE ). Water budget results also include an assessment of supply and use imbalances within the context of historical climatic conditions to calculate a surface water supply and use index and when considering a range of environmental flow allocation methods.

This data release contains results from a simple monthly water budget that includes water supply and consumptive use for thermoelectric, irrigation, and public supply for 12-digit Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC12) across the conterminous United States for water years 2010-2020. These results were produced using an analysis pipeline that ingests water supply, consumptive use, and routing information and accumulates and routes the water balance through the HUC12 network (Miller and others, 2024; https://doi.org/10.5066/P14MPRDE ). Water budget results also include an assessment of supply and use imbalances within the context of historical climatic conditions to calculate a surface water supply and use index and when considering a range of environmental flow allocation methods.

This dataset contains water-use estimates for 2015 that are aggregated to the county level in the United States. The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS's) National Water Use Science Project is responsible for compiling and disseminating the Nation's water-use data. Working in cooperation with local, State, and Federal agencies, the USGS has published an estimate of water use in the United States every 5 years, beginning in 1950. Water-use estimates aggregated to the State level are presented in USGS Circular 1441, "Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2015" (Dieter and others, 2018). This dataset contains the county-level water-use data that support the state-level estimates in Dieter and others 2018. This dataset contains data for public supply, domestic, irrigation, thermoelectric power, industrial, mining, livestock, and aquaculture water-use categories. First posted September 28, 2017, ver. 1.0 Revised June 19, 2018, ver. 2.0 Version 2.0: This version of the dataset contains total population data and water-use estimates for 2015 for the following categories: Public supply, domestic, irrigation, thermoelectric power, industrial, mining, livestock, and aquaculture. Data are aggregated to the county level. A value of "--" denotes that values were not estimated for an optional attribute. Some values in the public supply and domestic categories have been updated from those found in version 1.0 of this dataset. Version 1.0: This version of the dataset contains total population data and water-use estimates for the public supply and domestic categories for 2015 that are aggregated to the county level in the United States. A "--" in the attributes "PS-GWPop" or "PS-SWPop" denotes that values were not estimated for an optional attribute. All other occurrences of "--" denote data for an attribute in a water-use category that has not yet been released. Version 1.0 data are available upon request.