U.S. Geological Survey

Periodic Water Fact

An occasional little-known fact about our water.

You probably know that much of the fresh fruits and vegetables we eat come from California. The 1990 irrigation water-use numbers confirm this. California withdrew 27,900 Mgal/d for irrigation purposes, which means that over 20 percent of the nation's irrigation withdrawals were in California. Also, most of the fresh water withdrawn in California went to irrigate crops. The state withdrew a total of about 35,100 Mgal/d of fresh water in 1990, and about 27,900 Mgal/d went to irrigate land, that's almost 80 percent.

Which states do you think had the most acreage under irrigation? Yes, California, of course. Do you think Florida was second or third? Neither - in fact, Nebraska is second and Texas is third.

California: 9.4 million acres
Nebraska: 6.9 million acres
Texas: 6.2 million acres
Florida: 2.2 million acres (13th nationwide)

By the way, million gallons per day is the measurement USGS uses to document water use, but it probably doesn't mean much to you. This might make more sense: California used 27,900 Mgal/d to irrigate in 1990. That comes out to about 10,180,000 million gallons for the year. That is about 10.1 million million gallons, or 10,159,000,000,000 gallons, or about 10 trillion gallons.