Aquaculture water use
State-level modeled estimates of fresh groundwater and surface-water withdrawn for aquaculture in the 2013, 2018, and 2023 Census of Aquaculture reference years.
Publisher
- Organization
- U.S. Geological Survey
- Publisher’s dataset
- Aquaculture water-use withdrawal estimates for 2013, 2018, and 2023 by state and year for the United States, excluding territories
- File or API used
- https://doi.org/10.5066/P143KF7U
- Retrieval script
scripts/fetch-usgs-aquaculture-water-use.py- Methodology
- https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/66e47bcdd34e1cc1f894ed3f
Coverage
- Geography
- States (all fifty; no county-level data in this release)
- Time coverage
- 2013, 2018, 2023
- Update frequency
- Every 5 years, with the Census of Aquaculture
- Published
- July 20, 2026
- Retrieved
- September 9, 2026
- License of the records
- Public domain. U.S. federal government work (CC0-1.0 dedication).
- Rows
- 149 observations, 2013-2023
Measures
| Measure | What it measures | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Aquaculture water withdrawals | Fresh groundwater and surface-water withdrawn for aquaculture per year, converted from USGS's published million-gallons-per-day estimate. | acre feet |
| Aquaculture water withdrawals by source | Fresh aquaculture withdrawals split between groundwater and surface water, converted from USGS's published million-gallons-per-day estimate. Idaho only: the only state with a clean (non-withheld) source split in all three years. | acre feet |
Caveats
- These are modeled estimates built from Census of Aquaculture facility data, not reported withdrawals.
- This is not the same series as the aquaculture category in USGS's 1985-2015 Water Use Circulars; the method differs and the two are not comparable.
- USDA NASS withholds a state's row when fewer than six farms reported aquaculture; Delaware and North Dakota are withheld every year, Nevada also in 2023.
- No U.S. total is published or stored here, since summing withheld states would understate the true total.
- USGS publishes withdrawals in Mgal/d; values here are converted to acre-feet per year (1 Mgal/d = 1,120.14 acre-feet per year).
Pages built on this dataset
How to cite
Understand Idaho, “Aquaculture water-use withdrawal estimates for 2013, 2018, and 2023 by state and year for the United States, excluding territories”, compiled from U.S. Geological Survey, Aquaculture water-use withdrawal estimates for 2013, 2018, and 2023 by state and year for the United States, excluding territories. Retrieved September 9, 2026. https://understandidaho.com/data/usgs-aquaculture-water-use/.
Cite U.S. Geological Survey directly for the figures themselves.
This page was last updated .