Publications

Water availability is defined as the spatial and temporal distribution of water quantity and quality as it relates to the needs of humans and ecosystems. Broad assessment of water availability requires the consideration of multiple indicators because water users have different sensitivities to the degradation of water conditions. This chapter draws upon estimates of water supply, water...

The steady rise in global temperature as a result of human activity is causing changes in Earth’s water cycle. The balance of water stored within and moving between vapor, liquid, and frozen states in the water cycle is shifting, with consequences for water availability that include increases in drought, fire weather, flooding, and heavy precipitation, as well as cryosphere decline and...

Withdrawals of water for human use are fundamental to the evaluation of the Nation’s water availability. This chapter provides an analysis of public supply, crop irrigation, and thermoelectric power water use for the conterminous United States (CONUS) during water years 2010–20. These three categories account for about 90 percent of water withdrawals in the Nation. The values presented...

We present an assessment of water supply across the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico covering water years 2010–20. Our analysis drew on two national hydrologic models, the National Hydrologic Model Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System and the Weather Research and Forecasting model hydrologic modeling system. Both models produced estimates of streamflow

Water availability is fundamentally important to human well-being, economic vitality, and ecosystem health. Because of its central importance, the U.S. Congress tasked the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and other Federal agencies with conducting regular, comprehensive assessments of water availability in the United States through the requirements under the SECURE Water Act. In response to...

This professional paper is a multichapter report that assesses water availability in the United States for water years 2010–20. This work was conducted as part of the fulfillment of the mandates of Subtitle F of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-11), also known as the SECURE Water Act. As such, this work examines the spatial and temporal distribution of water...

U.S. federal leadership, mobilizing close interagency coordination across sectors, is key to tackling compound climate and human impacts on our nation’s water resources. Recognizing this need, federal agencies and academic collaborators conducted a series of workshops to advance Integrated Hydro-Terrestrial Modeling (IHTM). IHTM is focused on supporting a multiscale framework to...

El Paso County is the second-most populous county in Colorado and is projected to grow another 15 percent by 2030. Within El Paso County is the Upper Black Squirrel Creek Designated Groundwater Basin (Black Squirrel Basin), an area where surface water is scarce and water users rely primarily on groundwater from five different aquifers (the Upper Black Squirrel Creek alluvial aquifer and...

Groundwater drains to the land surface, generating the baseflow of streams, lakes, and wetlands. The hydrologic resilience of baseflow during prolonged dry periods and after disturbance can be assessed with evolving remote sensing analysis paired with localized monitoring of groundwater drainage features and creative model calibration strategies.

There is a growing need for consistent, large-scale estimates of water availability to identify and avoid potential conflicts among human and ecosystem uses of water. We present an assessment of water limitation, defined as the monthly balance (difference) between water supply (ws) and human consumptive water use (wc), for the conterminous United States (CONUS) during water years 2010...