Variable: Total water availability

Variable ID: availab

On This Page:

Identification Information:

Citation:
Citation Information:
Originator:U.S. Geological Survey
Publication Date:2025
Title:USGS National Water Availability Assessment Data Companion website
Geospatial Data Presentation Form:Digital datasets
Online Linkage:https://water.usgs.gov/nwaa-data/data-file-directory?path=data/integrated-water-availability/iwa-assessment-outputs-conus-2025/availab/
Larger Work Citation(s):
Citation Information:
Originator:Miller, O.L., Martinez, A.J., Cashman, M.J., Powlen, K.A., Padilla, J.A., and Stets, E.G.
Publication Date:2024-12-09
Title:Water budget results for a water availability assessment across the conterminous United States for water years 2010-2020
Geospatial Data Presentation Form:Digital datasets
Online Linkage:https://doi.org/10.5066/P1CFYEHO
Publisher:U.S. Geological Survey – ScienceBase
Citation Information:
Originator:Stets, E., Miller, O., Cashman, M., Powlen, K., Martinez, A., Archer, A.A., and Padilla, J.A.
Publication Date:2025-01-11
Title:Local water use and climate drive water stress over the conterminous United States with substantial impacts to fish species of conservation concern
Geospatial Data Presentation Form:Digital datasets
Online Linkage:https://d197for5662m48.cloudfront.net/documents/publicationstatus/240601/preprint_pdf/3e71524f57457d69e1fc51577b205ace.pdf
Publisher:Authorea Preprints
Description:
Name:Total water availability
Variable ID:availab
Units:Millimeters per month (mm/mo)
Summary:
Total water availability in this dataset refers to the total amount of water exiting a particular 12-digit hydrologic unit (HUC12). The amount is calculated as the net of streamflow inputs minus total consumptive water use locally and upstream.
Technical Description:
In equation-form: Total water availability = net water delivered to next downstream HUC12 (baseflow + quickflow + upstream inputs) - total consumptive loss. In some cases, total water availability can be negative, implying that consumptive losses are greater than natural supply. This situation can occur when human water consumption is sustained through deep groundwater sources, transbasin diversion, or drawdown of local storage.
Parent Model:
Name:National Water Availability Assessment Outputs (CONUS 2025)
Model ID:iwa-assessment-outputs-conus-2025
Time Period of Content:
Time Period Information:
Range of Dates/Times:
Start Year/Month:200910
End Year/Month:202009
Status:
Scenario:Historical
Spatial Domain:
Description of Geographic Extent:Lower 48 United States
Bounding Coordinates:
West Bounding Coordinate:-126.0
East Bounding Coordinate:-66.2
North Bounding Coordinate:49.7
South Bounding Coordinate:24.4
Geospatial Data Needed to Map Output:
Description of Spatial Resolution:12-digit hydrologic unit codes
Citation Information:
Title:October 2020 version of the Watershed Boundary Dataset
Online Linkage:https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/67082a0fd34e969edc5a1cca
Access Constraints:Some files are too large to open in spreadsheet programs. For ideal viewing of these files, please use a text editor to ensure all data are retained.
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Entity and Attribute Information:

Detailed Description:
Entity Type:
Entity Type Label:availab_historical_CONUS_200910-202009_describe.txt
Entity Type Definition:
Text (txt) file containing summary information for the dataset. For each metric (huc12_id, year_month, and availab_mm/mo) it provides the total number of dataset observations, the number of distinct values, and various summary statistics.
Entity Type Definition Source:Producer defined
Entity Type:
Entity Type Label:availab_historical_CONUS_200910-202009_histogram.png
Entity Type Definition:
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file containing a histogram showing the distribution of data values in the dataset, with values measured in millimeters per month on the x-axis and the number of occurrences of those values on the y-axis.
Entity Type Definition Source:Producer defined
Entity Type:
Entity Type Label:availab_historical_CONUS_200910-202009_long.csv
Entity Type Definition:
Comma Separated Value (CSV) file containing data for the 2009-2020 period by 12-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC12) and month and year for the Lower 48 United States. The first row is a header row and the data start on the second row. The first column is the 12-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC12) identifier (huc12_id) and the second column is the year and month (year_month). The third column contains the variable data, in millimeters per month (availab_mm/mo).
Entity Type Definition Source:Producer defined
Entity Type:
Entity Type Label:availab_iwa-assessment-outputs-conus-2025_CONUS_200910-202009_mean_map_detailed.pdf
Entity Type Definition:
Portable Document Format (PDF) file containing a map showing total water availability in millimeters per month averaged from 2009-10 to 2020-09 by 12-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC12) for the Lower 48 United States. This is a high-quality detailed map image with information on the source model and map creation date, as well as a link and QR code to the associated data.
Entity Type Definition Source:Producer defined
Entity Type:
Entity Type Label:availab_iwa-assessment-outputs-conus-2025_CONUS_200910-202009_mean_map_basic.png
Entity Type Definition:
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file containing a map showing total water availability in millimeters per month averaged from 2009-10 to 2020-09 by 12-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC12) for the Lower 48 United States.
Entity Type Definition Source:Producer defined
Entity Type:
Entity Type Label:availab_iwa-assessment-outputs-conus-2025_CONUS_200910-202009_mean_map_detailed.png
Entity Type Definition:
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file containing a map showing total water availability in millimeters per month averaged from 2009-10 to 2020-09 by 12-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC12) for the Lower 48 United States. This is a high-quality detailed map image with information on the source model and map creation date, as well as a link and QR code to the associated data.
Entity Type Definition Source:Producer defined
Entity Type:
Entity Type Label:availab_historical_CONUS_200910-202009_wide.csv
Entity Type Definition:
Comma Separated Value (CSV) file containing data for the 2009-2020 period by month and year for the Lower 48 United States. The first row is a header row and the data start on the second row. The first column is the year and month (year_month). All following columns represent an individual 12-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC12), where the values are the variable data, in millimeters per month.
Entity Type Definition Source:Producer defined
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Explore Further - Analyses and Findings:

National Water Availability Assessment Report Chapter(s):
Chapter:
Title:Chapter A: Executive Summary
Description:
Chapter A introduces the National Water Availability Assessment and provides important background and definitions for how the report characterizes water availability and its components. This chapter also presents the key findings of Chapters B-F and thus acts as a summary of the entire report. The sidebars presented in Chapter A provide context for the datasets and citations that are used throughout the report.
Online Linkage:https://doi.org/10.3133/pp1894A
Chapter:
Title:Chapter F: Integrated Water availability
Description:
The National Water Availability Assessment Report culminates with Chapter F (Stets and others, 2025), which is an integrated assessment of water availability. A comprehensive description of water availability requires consideration of multiple aspects, such as the amount and conditions of water (quantity and quality), along with the sensitivity of users to those conditions. This chapter uses information from the assessments of water supply, quality, and use to create a more integrated investigation of water availability across CONUS. This investigation includes the use of an index referred to as the surface water-supply and use index (SUI), which determines the relative stress from potential imbalances between water supply and water use.
Online Linkage:https://doi.org/10.3133/pp1894F
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