Virginia Tech: “Water powers our lives. It feeds our crops, keeps factories running, generates electricity, and fills our taps. But until now, no one had a clear, national picture of how much water we’re using — and for what. Landon Marston, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and his doctoral student Yunus Naseri are changing that. They have created the United States Water Withdrawals Database, the first nationwide resource to track who is drawing water from rivers, lakes, and underground aquifers, and in what amounts. Their study was published in Nature Scientific Data. The database is now publicly available for communities and policymakers to use and includes:

• 188,857 unique water users
• 353,694 points of diversion and use
• 58 million withdrawal volumes
• 7.5 million individual records

Access to this kind of data has never been more important, as communities face increasing stress on water resources due to droughts, climate change, and population growth…”