Humans and Hydrology at High Latitudes: Water Use Information
CONTACT:
Daniel White
University of Alaska Fairbanks Campus
Adm Svcs Ctr Rm 109
Fairbanks, AK 99709
907 474-7314
dmwhite@alaska.edu
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:
Daniel White
CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:
Lilian Alessa
FUNDING SOURCE AND GRANT NUMBER:
NSF grant OPP-0531148
DATA SET OVERVIEW:
This data set contains water use information for Canadian and Alaskan communities as well as general water-use estimates provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for the whole of the United States. These data are utilized in the ArcticRIMS project to improve the development of the water stress model. This water stress model shows the effects of water resources, humans and climate change in the Arctic.
Recent studies suggest that climate change will have a significant impact on arctic hydrology. However, it is currently unknown which regions of the pan-Arctic are most vulnerable to future changes. In order to begin to address the future change to freshwater availability on a pan-arctic scale, a system of arctic typologies were used to enable the integration of biophysical data with socio-cultural data produced regionally, such as demographics and water values. Those mature data sets were used to study the strategic transformations of the high latitude water cycle. The overall objective of this research is to use a wide array of existing data sets in a synthesis effort to describe the vital role of freshwater in the lives of people in the pan-Arctic, how it has changed in the recent past, and how it is likely to change in the future.
DATA COLLECTION and PROCESSING:
This data set is comprised of the data that were evaluated. Not all were used in detail, but all were considered, as noted.
- Data on water extraction from Russian rivers were reviewed but were not used because the spreadsheet did not come with any metadata. These data are attached as file “withdrawl_ob_engl.xls” (which is included "as is", without metadata).
- The USGS produces a series of semi-decadal reports on water use data in the US by county. These data, although not specifically used, were reviewed. An example is the file named “AK_counties_2000.xls”, along with the metadata report “estimated_use_of_water_in_the_US_2000.pdf”. These data for all years and all counties in the US are available at the following web site: water.usgs.gov/watuse/data/. Data are available for 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005. The data include all of the states’ collected data for public supply, domestic, irrigation, industrial, and thermoelectric power water use. These categories represented 97 percent of water use during 1995. Although all states collected data for domestic water use and for public supply population served, some states did not report this data at the county level. Those states will have totals in Circular 1268, but will show blanks for domestic self-supplied population, domestic fresh ground-water withdrawals, domestic fresh surface-water withdrawals, domestic total fresh withdrawals, and/or public-supply total population served in the county-level data files. If county-level estimates for domestic water use are not available, the total water use data elements also will be blank in the data files. If totals were calculated without the domestic water-use estimates, they would not agree with the totals for those states in Circular 1268. Selected states collected data for 2000 in the categories of livestock, aquaculture, and mining.
- One spreadsheet that is included contains wastewater generation data for Canada. This is a file that was used to better understand water use. It is called “wastewaterNWT.xls”.
DATA FORMAT:
Data are formatted as tab-delimited Excel spreadsheets (.xls), and portable document format (.pdf) files.
Data dictionaries are formatted as ASCII text (.txt) and Hypertext Markup Language (.html) files.
File Naming Conventions and Structure
The following describes the data file structure for this data set:
| Filename |
Description |
| AK_counties_2000.xls |
USGS water-use estimates by county for Alaska, 2000 |
| datadict2000.html |
USGS Data Dictionary for water-use estimates data file usco2000.xls |
| datadict2005.html |
USGS Data Dictionary for water-use estimates data file usco2005.xls |
| dictionary95.txt |
USGS Data Dictionary for water-use estimates data file usco95.xls |
| estimated_use_of_water_in_US_2000.pdf |
USGS state-level water-use estimates report, 2000 - USGS file source named circular1268.pdf |
| estimated_use_of_water_in_US_2005.pdf |
USGS state-level water-use estimates report, 2005 - USGS file source named c1344.pdf |
| first_nations_canada_water_and_wastewater_systems.pdf |
Water and wastewater systems report on First Nations communities in Canada, 2003 |
| us85co.xls |
USGS water-use estimates by county for the United States, 1985 |
| us90co.xls |
USGS water-use estimates by county for the United States, 1990 |
| usco95.xls |
USGS water-use estimates by county for the United States, 1995 |
| usco2000.xls |
USGS water-use estimates by county for the United States, 2000 |
| usco2005.xls |
USGS water-use estimates by county for the United States, 2005 |
| wastewaterNWT.xls |
Wastewater generation data for Canada in communities with a piped system |
| withdrawal_ob_engl.xls |
Water extraction data for Russian rivers - Ob River, Irtysh River, Tobol River, Tom River |
| wudict.txt |
USGS Data Dictionary for water-use estimates data files us85co.xls and us90co.xls |
DATA REMARKS:
In reference to the USGS water-use estimates by county for the United States:
- These reports are semi-decadal, produced once every 5 years
- These data include all states’ collected data for public supply, domestic, irrigation, industrial, and thermoelectric power water use. These categories represented 97 percent of water use during 1995.
- Although all states collected data for domestic water use and for public supply population served, some states did not report these data at the county level. Those states will have totals in Circular 1268 (estimated_use_of_water_in_US_2000.pdf), but will show blanks for domestic self-supplied population, domestic fresh ground-water withdrawals, domestic fresh surface-water withdrawals, domestic total fresh withdrawals, and/or public-supply total population served in the county-level data files.
- If county-level estimates for domestic water use are not available, the total water use data elements also will be blank in the data files. If totals were calculated without the domestic water-use estimates, they would not agree with the totals for those states in Circular 1268.
- Selected states collected data for 2000 in the categories of livestock, aquaculture, and mining.