TY - JOUR
T1 - Reanalysis of Water Withdrawal for Irrigation, Electric Power, and Public Supply Sectors in the Conterminous United States, 1950–2016
AU - McManamay, Ryan A.
AU - Binita, K. C.
AU - Allen-Dumas, Melissa R.
AU - Kao, Shih Chieh
AU - Brelsford, Christa M.
AU - Ruddell, Benjamin L.
AU - Sanyal, Jibonananda
AU - Stewart, Robert N.
AU - Bhaduri, Budhendra L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This manuscript has been authored by employees of UT‐Battelle, under contract DE‐AC05‐00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy. This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, as part of research in MultiSector Dynamics, Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program. This work was also conducted as a part of the “Reanalyzing and Predicting U.S. Water Use using Economic History and Forecast Data; an experiment in short‐range national hydro‐economic data synthesis” Working Group supported by the John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, funded by the USGS. We thank Casey Burleyson and Chris Vernon for posting the reanalysis data set to the IM3 website. We are also appreciative to five anonymous reviewers who provided comments on previous versions of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2021/2
Y1 - 2021/2
N2 - Accurately measuring water use by the economy is essential for developing reliable models of water resource availability. Indeed, these models rely on retrospective analyses that provide insights into shifting human population demands and adaptions to water shortages. However, accurate, methodologically consistent, empirically authentic, and spatiotemporally comprehensive historical datasets for water withdrawals are scarce. Herein, we present a reanalysis of annual resolution (1950–2016) historical data set on irrigation, electric power, and public supply water withdrawal within the conterminous United States (US) at the county-level, and, for power plants, at the site-level. To estimate electric power water use, we synthesized a historically comprehensive list of generators and historic patterns in generation across fuels, prime movers, and cooling technologies. Irrigation water use estimation required building a crop-demand model that utilized historical information on irrigated acreage for crops and golf courses, stage-specific crop water demand, and climate information. To estimate public water supply use, we developed a random forest model constructed from information on population, infrastructure, climate, and land cover. These estimates generally agree with total county and state water use information provided by the US Geological Survey (USGS) water use circular and estimates generated from independent studies for specific years. However, we also observed discrepancies between our estimates and USGS data that appear to be caused by inconsistencies in the methods used by the USGS's primary data sources at the state level over decades of data collection, highlighting the importance of reanalysis to yield spatiotemporally consistent and intercomparable estimates of water use.
AB - Accurately measuring water use by the economy is essential for developing reliable models of water resource availability. Indeed, these models rely on retrospective analyses that provide insights into shifting human population demands and adaptions to water shortages. However, accurate, methodologically consistent, empirically authentic, and spatiotemporally comprehensive historical datasets for water withdrawals are scarce. Herein, we present a reanalysis of annual resolution (1950–2016) historical data set on irrigation, electric power, and public supply water withdrawal within the conterminous United States (US) at the county-level, and, for power plants, at the site-level. To estimate electric power water use, we synthesized a historically comprehensive list of generators and historic patterns in generation across fuels, prime movers, and cooling technologies. Irrigation water use estimation required building a crop-demand model that utilized historical information on irrigated acreage for crops and golf courses, stage-specific crop water demand, and climate information. To estimate public water supply use, we developed a random forest model constructed from information on population, infrastructure, climate, and land cover. These estimates generally agree with total county and state water use information provided by the US Geological Survey (USGS) water use circular and estimates generated from independent studies for specific years. However, we also observed discrepancies between our estimates and USGS data that appear to be caused by inconsistencies in the methods used by the USGS's primary data sources at the state level over decades of data collection, highlighting the importance of reanalysis to yield spatiotemporally consistent and intercomparable estimates of water use.
KW - electricity
KW - food-energy-water nexus
KW - hydrology
KW - irrigation
KW - water use
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U2 - 10.1029/2020WR027751
DO - 10.1029/2020WR027751
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85101734697
SN - 0043-1397
VL - 57
JO - Water Resources Research
JF - Water Resources Research
IS - 2
M1 - e2020WR027751
ER -