Landon Marston, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, and his doctoral student Yunus Naseri created the United States Water Withdrawals Database. Their study appears in Nature Scientific Data, and the database is publicly available. To build it, the team worked with all 50 state agencies and collected standardized records from 42 states; some records stretch back more than a century.
The database contains large quantities of standardized records, including counts of unique users, points of diversion and use, withdrawal volumes and millions of individual records. The researchers note that 43 out of 50 states require large water users to report withdrawals, but reporting rules and formats vary.
Early findings show that agricultural irrigation accounts for the largest share of recorded entries and that the power sector withdraws the largest total volume each year. The dataset is not a full census and coverage varies by state; only about a quarter of reported withdrawals are directly measured with meters. The resource aims to help track seasonal changes and support conservation and management decisions.
Difficult words
- withdrawal — amount of water taken from a sourcewithdrawals
- database — organized digital collection of related information
- standardized — made to follow the same format or rules
- diversion — place or point where water is redirected
- irrigation — watering crops on farms to grow plants
- conservation — careful use and protection of natural resources
- coverage — amount of area or data included in records
- meter — device that measures the amount of watermeters
Tip: hover, focus or tap highlighted words in the article to see quick definitions while you read or listen.
Discussion questions
- How might this database help local water managers make decisions about water use?
- Why is it important to collect standardized records from many states rather than different formats?
- What problems could arise from only about a quarter of withdrawals being directly measured with meters?
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