How do I access historical STATE water-use data?
National Water Information System: Help System - State water-use data
Start at http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis (this link opens a new window).
Step 1
Click on the blue Water Use button on the browser screen (on bottom left)
Step 2
The National Water Use website will appear on the browser screen with the Geographic Area in the top right hand corner of the screen:
Step 3
Change Geographic Area to get historical State or other geographical area water-use data. Use the drop-down Geographic Area window in the upper right of the browser screen to select an area and click on the “GO” button:
The webpage for the chosen State will appear:
Click on blue “State Data” button on the left side of screen to retrieve data.
The webpage for state water-use data retrieval will appear.
Step 4
Choose the year(s) for the state water-use data retrieval by clicking on a selection – once a year(s) is chosen then Area Type (State Total or County) available for that year will appear.
Note: Multiple years (or selections) can be chosen by using “Ctrl” and “Alt” keys with the (left) mouse click.
Step 5
Choose the Area Type and Category selection(s) for data retrieval by clicking on a selection – For Area Type, choose either State Total or County (NOTE: multiple categories can not be chosen for area type).
When choosing the “State Total” option, the Category window will then appear and offer water-use category choices for data retrieval. Under Category, the options are “ALL Categories” or one or more individual categories (e.g., Domestic, Industrial,…) may be chosen.
When choosing the “County” option, a window with all the counties in the state will appear next to Area Type. The options are “ALL Counties” or one or more individual counties may be chosen. Under Category, the options are “ALL Categories” or one or more individual categories (e.g., Domestic, Industrial,…) may be chosen.
A. Example Screen for State Total option:
Step 5 continued
B. Example Screen for County Option:
Once water-use data selection(s) have been made, click “Submit” button.
An output format options webpage will appear.
Step 6
Choose the output format for the water-use data retrieval. The options are to get a table of data or tab-separated data.
Step 6 continued:
A. Output Option: Table of data on the screen
Select the “table of data” option and click “Submit”:
Step 6 continued:
B. Output Option: Tab-separated data
Select the tab-separated data to (1) save to a file; (2) display in the browser window; or (3) saved to a compressed file
For saving data to a file, choose “tab-separated data” and “save to a file” and then click “Submit”. Once “Submit” has been clicked - the data file can be opened in the browser window or saved to a selected location.
The tab-separated data file saved to a file will look something like this (also same for display in browser window option):
Step 7
Congratulations you have retrieved state water-use data from the USGS NWIS system.
For help: Contact(s) are listed at the bottom of the USGS NWIS browser screen.