WATER USE

 Water-use home

• Summaries
  • Total water use
  • Groundwater
  • Surface water
  • Historical trends

• Water use by category
  • Public supply
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  • Irrigation
  • Thermoelectric power
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  • Mining
  • Livestock
  • Aquaculture

• Data downloads

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  • Methods

Estimated Use of Water in the United States
County and HUC8 Data for 1985

The current best estimates of county, State, and national water-use data 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 may have been revised from previous publications such as Circular 1081.

The files linked on this page present water-use estimates by county and hydrologic units (watersheds) for the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands which support the State-level water-use estimates published in Circular 1004, Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1985. Publication data files for other 5-year reports are also available.

The summary of category changes and the water-use terminology page may also be helpful.

Comprehensiveness of data collection for 1985

• All States provided estimates for public supply, domestic, commercial, irrigation, livestock, industrial, mining, and thermoelectric power water use.
• All States provided estimates of public supply deliveries for domestic, commercial, industrial, and thermoelectric power use.
• All States provided estimates of sewage treatment water releases.
• All States provided estimates of hydroelectric power instream use.

Levels of data aggregation and release outlet

• State-level data for 1985 were published in USGS Circular 1004.
     Data file of state-level data (tab-delimited text) | Data dictionary
• County-level data for 1985 are in the data files linked from this page.
• Water-resources region (HUC2) data for 1985 were published in USGS Circular 1004.
     Datafile of HUC2-level data (tab-delimited text)
• Water-resources subregion (HUC4), accounting unit (HUC6), and cataloging unit (HUC8) for 1985 are in the data files linked from this page. Some States do not have HUC6 and HUC8 estimates for 1985.

Data Files

Individual State data files for counties and watersheds are provided in tab-delimited text files (.txt). The concatenated file of all county-level data for the United States is also provided in Microsoft Excel format, with the data dictionary on a second tab. (The use of trade names is for identification purposes only and does not constitute endorsement by the U.S. Geological Survey.) Microsoft has a free viewer program for Microsoft Excel files for those who do not own a copy of Microsoft Excel. The watershed file for the United States as a whole is concatenated from the individual State files. Watersheds that cross State lines will have entries for each State section, which must be added together to determine the total water use for the watershed.

A separate data dictionary is available for use with the text files. An index of county FIPS codes is available from the U.S. Census Bureau.