Industry and Mining

Through the Water Availability and Use Science Program, USGS will provide national information on withdrawal, conveyance, consumptive use, and return flow by water-use category at spatial and temporal resolutions important for risk-informed water management decisions. Water-use data provide a foundation for water managers to analyze trends over time, plan more strategically, identify, and...

Water use estimates for 2000 through 2020 are now available for the three largest categories of use in the United States: self-supplied thermoelectric power generation, self-supplied irrigation, and public supply. Five additional categories of use (self-supplied industrial, domestic, mining, livestock, and aquaculture) will be available in 2025.

Regional Water Availability Assessments are scientific assessments of water availability in different hydrologic regions across the Nation. In the Upper Colorado River Basin, the USGS will conduct a focused assessment of how snowpack and snowmelt influence hydrology and water quality, and an integrated and comprehensive assessment of multiple water quantity, quality and use factors.

The United States faces growing challenges to its water supply, and we need to know where there is not enough water, where we have more than we need, and the quality of the water. The USGS is charged with understanding and reporting on water availability including influences on water supply (how much water and of what quality) and water demand (how much water do humans and ecosystems need).

The USGS Water Resources Mission Area is assessing how much water is available for human and ecological needs in the United States and identifying where and when the Nation may have challenges meeting its demand for water.

The USGS Water-Use Data and Research (WUDR) program provides financial assistance through cooperative agreements with State water resource agencies to improve the availability, quality, compatibility, and delivery of water-use data that is collected or estimated by States.

The U.S. Geological Survey is integrating its water science programs to better address the Nation’s greatest water resource challenges. At the heart of this effort are plans to intensively study at least 10 Integrated Water Science (IWS) basins — medium-sized watersheds (10,000-20,000 square miles) and underlying aquifers — over the next decade. The IWS basins will represent a wide range of...

This website compiles USGS resources and data related to principal aquifers including Aquifer Basics, principal aquifers maps and GIS data, and the National Aquifer Code Reference List.

In 2019, the USGS began studying the baseline water-quality of selected transboundary rivers in the Pacific Northwest. These studies are designed to characterize current water-quality conditions so as to facilitate future assessments of potential impacts related to upstream mining activities.

Declining snow cover is playing a key role in decreasing the flow of the Colorado River, “the lifeblood of the Southwest,” by enabling increased evaporation. As the warming continues, increasingly severe water shortages are expected.

The USGS is evaluating the integration of small unoccupied aircraft systems – sUAS or "drones" – into USGS hydrogeophysical studies. The following projects are part of a Water Resources Mission Area demonstration and evaluation effort in collaboration with USGS Water Science Centers (WSCs) starting in June 2018.

Total withdrawals for all categories of use in 2015 were estimated to be 322 billion gallons per day (Bgal/d), a level of withdrawal not reported since before 1970. Total withdrawals in 2015 were 9 percent less than in 2010, continuing a sharp but steady downward trend since 2005. Freshwater withdrawals were also 9 percent less than in 2015.