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The United States Water Crisis

How changes to the natural water cycle and increasing demand are causing water stress

Andrew Levinson | May 2019

Part 1

Background

Freshwater has been described as the oil of the 21st century [1]. In the wake of extreme water stress events across the globe in places like Cape Town, Mexico City, and Australia, I wanted to take a look at water issues here at home in the United States. Major factors like population growth and climate change are causing localized regional pockets of water stress that will soon affect other areas of the country without action. To change our relationship with water, action must come in the form of both infrastructure investments and behavioral changes.

Renewable Water Resources Per Capita (USA)
Dependencies
Surface Water
Groundwater
198819901992199419961998200020022004200620082010201220147,0008,0009,00010,00011,00012,00013,00014,000m3/year/person
Why Are We Running Out of Water?

Each country has a static amount of renewable water provided by the natural water cycle. As long as populations continue to grow, the renewable water per person decreases. Combined with climate change factors and increasing demand for water-intensive goods and services, the United States faces an increased risk of water stress every year we don't take action.

Trending Down

According to Aquastat, 2014 yielded the lowest available water per capita on record at 9,538 m 3/year/person, down about 25% over the last 30 years.

Where Does Our Freshwater Come From?

Renewable freshwater is mostly extracted from Surface Water: 61%, Groundwater: 31%, with some water coming from beyond the country's borders like from Canada marked as Dependencies: 8%.

How is it Used?

Every five years, the U.S. Geological Survey collects water usage data for the country. As of 2015, the allocation of withdrawn freshwater shows the top three uses of water as

Thermoelectric: 41%, Irrigation: 37% and Municipal: 13%

However, this number is a bit misleading as not all water withdrawn is consumed—specifically in thermoelectric usage where virtually all water is returned back to the earth after it's used for a once-through cooling process.

Excluding Thermoelectric Withdrawals

If we remove thermoelectric withdrawals from the chart, it paints a more accurate picture of consumptive water use, now showing the top three uses of water as

Irrigation: 63%, Municipal: 22% and Industrial: 14%

But these numbers are just averages, the local breakdown is much different...

Part 2

Water Stress

While the average withdrawals show a broad picture of water usage across the United States, it's important to look at where in the country the most water is being withdrawn and consumed. This helps understand how water stress from surface water elusiveness, groundwater over-abstraction, infrastructure play a role at local, regional, and national levels.

Freshwater Withdrawals Per Capita

As alluded to in the previous section, most of our freshwater withdrawals are not for drinking water, but for irrigation—which occurs predominantly in the High Plaines and Western regions. That's why this crisis is much bigger than just direct personal consumption.

Current Water Stress in the United States

Throughout the country, we have already seen increasing water stress due to several factors. While some of these issues are isolated and some are symptoms of overarching problems like climate change, they are all signs of things to come if inaction continues.

Colorado River

Described as the "most controlled, controversial and litigated rivers in the world," [2] the Colorado River provides drinking water and agricultural needs to · 40 million people [3], including major cities highlighted on the map. Extended droughts have caused extreme stress on drinking water supply, irrigation, hydroelectricity, and water rights overall.

Flood Levels Exceeding 99% Percentile

According to data pulled from the USGS on May 6, 2019 (the time of this writing), there are over 50 extreme flooding scenarios
Not only is flooding dangerous and expensive, but it can severely affect agriculture and drinking water due to contamination.

Groundwater Depletion & Over-Abstraction

Most aquifers across the country are dealing with adverse effects from increasing depletion intensity of below-ground aquifers—which you can think of as the savings account of our water supply. If increasing depletion intensity isn't tamed, the over-abstraction of groundwater can lead to wells drying up, contamination and saltwater intrusion, and the ground literally sinking.

Drinking Water Infrastructure Across the Entire US

Infrastructure repair needs in the US have skyrocketed in the last 50 years. Click the play button below to see the total investment required to improve our drinking water infrastructure for each state:

Part 3

Water Action

After reading about half a trillion dollars needed for infrastructure, increasing groundwater depletion intensity, and climate change affecting the natural water cycle of our surface water, it's hard to imagine how any individual efforts can make a difference.

While it's necessary for government at the local, state, and federal level to provide funding for massive infrastructure investments, smarter irrigation systems, and climate change fighting policies, we often underestimate the impact our daily choices make on water withdrawals.

You and I can't spend half a trillion dollars on infrastructure, but we can change our behaviors to force conservation efforts.

Investments and Behavioral Changes to Conserve Water
1. Pick your conservation strategy ↓
Behavioral Changes

Gallons / Person / Day

 -4%
 -1%
Infrastructure Investments

$ Billions Invested / Year

+$7B
+$3B
2. Compare categories by annual water savings ↓
3. See total water saved ↓
05,00010,00015,00020,000Virtual Usage1,314Infrastructure649Direct Usage597Irrigation405Billions of Gallons / Year2,965
Behavioral Changes vs. Direct Investments

This scenario model helps visualize the massive impact that seemingly small behavioral changes have in aggregate when compared against massive spending efforts.


Try adjusting the sliders to the left to set your own water conservation strategy.

Conclusion

Reflections

This is not an all or nothing approach. By reducing our virtual water footprint, alongside major investments in infrastructure and irrigation technologies, we can help mitigate shortage conditions in the west, the drinking water impact of floods in the midwest, the depletion intensity of our below-ground aquifers by ultimately allowing us to do more with less water.

Understanding the magnitude of these specific courses of action will enable us to drastically change our relationship with the most valuable natural resource on earth.

Methodology, Sources, and Footnotes

This story was created by Andrew Levinson in support of a graduate school thesis for the Masters of Science in Data Visualization at Parsons School of Design // The New School.

Data was mostly collected from US governmental organizations, including: the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [both the current website and the archived version which included climate change data until January 19th, 2017], the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) for which you can find the direct links to the data in the sources section below.

This visual essay was built with Vue CLI 3, D3, Mapbox Studio, and QGIS. I also used the help of the graph-scroll.js library for scroll events and vue-slider-component for the slider components.

Footnotes:

  1. "Water is the oil of the 21st century" has appeared in many articles. It isn't clear who originally phrased the commodity in this way.
  2. Southern Nevada Water Authority
  3. Colorado River Streamflow: A Paleo Perspective

Sources:

  1. Aquastat Renewable Water Per Capita
  2. USGS Water Usage Data
  3. Shortage Odds in Lower Basin
  4. USGS Flooding Data
  5. USGS Groundwater Depletion Study
  6. EPA 6th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment
  7. American Society of Civil Engineers Failure to Act Infrastructure Report (2016)
  8. USDA Farming and Irrigation Data
  9. Water Research Foundation Residential End Uses of Water, Version 2: Executive Report
  10. Geojson files for US counties and state lines from Eric Celeste
  11. Shapefiles from USGS for aquifers, basins, and rivers

Feel free to check out the code or email me.