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Groundwater wells are critical infrastructure that enable the monitoring, extraction, and use of groundwater, which has important implications for the environment, water security, and economic development. Despite the importance of wells, a unified database collecting and standardizing information on the characteristics and locations of these wells across the United States has been lacking. To bridge this gap, we have created a comprehensive database of groundwater well records collected from state and federal agencies, which we call the United States Groundwater Well Database (USGWD). Presented in both tabular form and as vector points, USGWD comprises over 14.2 million well records with attributes, such as well purpose, location, depth, and capacity, for wells constructed as far back as 1763 to 2023. Rigorous cross-verification steps have been applied to ensure the accuracy of the data. The USGWD stands as a valuable tool for improving our understanding of how groundwater is accessed and managed across various regions and sectors within the United States.

 

Interbasin water transfers (IBTs) can have a significant impact on the environment, water availability, and economies within the basins importing and exporting water, as well as basins downstream of these water transfers. The lack of comprehensive data identifying and describing IBTs inhibits understanding of the role IBTs play in supplying water for society, as well as their collective hydrologic impact. We develop three connected datasets inventorying IBTs in the United States and Canada, including their features, geospatial details, and water transfer volumes. We surveyed the academic and gray literature, as well as local, state, and federal water agencies, to collect, process, and verify IBTs in Canada and the United States. Our comprehensive IBT datasets represent all known transfers of untreated water that cross subregion (US) or subdrainage area (CA) boundaries, characterizing a total of 641 IBT projects. The infrastructure-level data made available by these data products can be used to close water budgets, connect water supplies to water use, and better represent human impacts within hydrologic and ecosystem models.

 

Abstract The average farm size has more than doubled within the United States over the last three decades, transforming the agricultural industry and rural farming communities. It is unclear, however, how this ubiquitous trend has affected and is affected by the environment, particularly groundwater resources critical for food production. Here, we leverage a unique multi-decadal dataset of well-level groundwater withdrawals for crop irrigation over the Kansas High Plains Aquifer to determine the interactions between groundwater depletion and growing farms. Holding key technological, management, and environmental variables fixed, we show that doubling a farm’s irrigated cropland decreases groundwater extractions by 2%–5% depending on the initial farm size. However, a corresponding shift by larger farms to different irrigation technologies offsets this reduction in groundwater use, leading to a slight increase in overall groundwater use. We find groundwater depletion increases the likelihood farmland is sold to a larger farm, amplifying the cycle of groundwater depletion and the consolidation of farmland. 

The production of food, electricity, and treated water is often tracked and managed along political or infrastructure boundaries. Yet, water resources, a critical input in the production of these goods, are delineated along natural landscape features (i.e., watersheds). The boundary mismatch between water resources and the associated production of economic goods conceals hydrologic dependencies and vulnerabilities in the provisioning of Food‐Energy‐Water (FEW) resources. In this study, we pair economic, infrastructure, and hydrologic data to evaluate the production of food, electricity, and treated water within watersheds of the conterminous United States. The US FEW sectors produced 950 million tonnes of crops, 3,973 million MWh of electricity, and supplied water to 263 million people in 2017. FEW production consumed 128 km³of blue water (18%) and 583 km³of green water (82%). Watersheds in central and southern California, the Midwest, and the Southwest have the largest FEW blue water consumption and the greatest exposure to water stress. Nearly three‐fifths of FEW production occurs in regularly water‐stressed watersheds. FEW production in watersheds in the Great Plains and Midwest relies heavily on groundwater to buffer against intra‐ and inter‐annual streamflow variability, while surface reservoir storage buffers against water shortages in all watersheds. We show where FEW production may be susceptible to curtailments due to ongoing groundwater depletion or known infrastructure deficiencies. This study adds to our understanding of how a nation's water resources and associated infrastructure support economic activity, as well as areas where economic activity is exposed to hydrological and infrastructure risks.

 

In the United States, greater attention has been given to developing water supplies and quantifying available waters than determining who uses water, how much they withdraw and consume, and how and where water use occurs. As water supplies are stressed due to an increasingly variable climate, changing land‐use, and growing water needs, greater consideration of the demand side of the water balance equation is essential. Data about the spatial and temporal aspects of water use for different purposes are now critical to long‐term water supply planning and resource management. We detail the current state of water‐use data, the major stakeholders involved in their collection and applications, and the challenges in obtaining high‐quality nationally consistent data applicable to a range of scales and purposes. Opportunities to improve access, use, and sharing of water‐use data are outlined. We cast a vision for a world‐class national water‐use data product that is accessible, timely, and spatially detailed. Our vision will leverage the strengths of existing local, state, and federal agencies to facilitate rapid and informed decision‐making, modeling, and science for water resources. To inform future decision‐making regarding water supplies and uses, we must coordinate efforts to substantially improve our capacity to collect, model, and disseminate water‐use data.