Idaho water use
Water withdrawals in Idaho by source, category and county, from USGS's 5-year Water Use Circular series: total withdrawals from all sources, withdrawals by category of use, and fresh irrigation withdrawals.
Figures
Source: U.S. Geological Survey, Estimated Use of Water in the United States. Data period 2015.
| Measure | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Total water withdrawals2015 | 19.87 million acre-feet | 2015 |
| Irrigation water withdrawals2015 | 17.13 million acre-feet | 2015 |
Pages built on this dataset
Publisher
- Organization
- U.S. Geological Survey
- Publisher’s dataset
- Estimated Use of Water in the United States
- File or API used
- https://doi.org/10.5066/F7TB15V5
- Methodology
- https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/accessing-water-use-data
Coverage
- Geography
- Idaho statewide and by county (44 counties)
- Time coverage
- 1985-2015
- Update frequency
- Every 5 years
- Retrieved
- September 9, 2026
- License of the records
- Public domain. U.S. federal government work.
- Rows
- 688 observations, 1985-2015
Measures
| Measure | What it measures | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Total water withdrawals | Total water withdrawn per year from all sources (groundwater and surface water) and both fresh and saline, across every offstream use category USGS compiled that year, converted from USGS's published million-gallons-per-day figure. | acre feet |
| Water withdrawals by category | Total water withdrawn per year for one category of use (fresh plus saline where USGS reports a saline column for that category), converted from USGS's published million-gallons-per-day figure. Idaho statewide only. | acre feet |
| Irrigation water withdrawals | Fresh groundwater and surface-water withdrawn for irrigation per year, converted from USGS's published million-gallons-per-day figure. | acre feet |
Caveats
- USGS published one county-level file per Circular year (1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010); Understand Idaho reads each directly from the publisher's site. 2015, the last Circular year, instead comes from a separate USGS data release, linked above.
- USGS publishes withdrawals in million gallons per day (Mgal/d); values here are converted to acre-feet per year (1 Mgal/d = 1,120.14 acre-feet per year).
- Idaho statewide and category totals are this site's own sum of the source file's county-level rows, not a separately published state total.
- Irrigation withdrawals cover crops and, from 2000 on, golf courses, combined into one figure.
- Livestock is stock watering only; Animal Specialties (1985-1995) and Aquaculture (2000 on) are separate categories because USGS defines them differently. Commercial is a category only from 1985 to 1995; USGS stopped compiling it after 1995.
- Mining has no figure for 2000; Public Supply (2000), Livestock (2000 on) and Aquaculture (2000 and 2005) are fresh water only.
- The 1985 file prints zero for Animal Specialties in every Idaho county; the value is stored as printed.
Where sources disagree
- Water withdrawals by category, Idaho, 2015: USGS livestock water-use estimates, 2022 publishes 61,480 acre-feet. This is the Livestock row of the 2015 Water Use Circular, 56,870 acre-feet. USGS's separate 2022 Livestock water-use withdrawal estimates, shown on /water/livestock-water-use/, give 61,480 acre-feet for Idaho. The two are different products: the Circular is a five-year compilation last produced for 2015, while the 2022 release is a newer, county-level model built on per-head water-use coefficients and animal inventories. Neither supersedes the other; they are not the same measurement repeated over time.
- Water withdrawals by category, Idaho, 2015: USGS aquaculture water-use estimates, 2023 publishes 3.87 million acre-feet. This is the Aquaculture row of the 2015 Water Use Circular, 2,201,069 acre-feet. USGS's separate Aquaculture water-use estimates for 2023, shown on /water/aquaculture-water-use/, give 3,871,548 acre-feet for Idaho. The two are different products: the Circular is a five-year compilation last produced for 2015, while the newer release is built on Census of Aquaculture facility data with its own methodology and is published for 2013, 2018 and 2023. Neither supersedes the other; they are not the same measurement repeated over time.
How to cite
Understand Idaho, “Estimated Use of Water in the United States”, compiled from U.S. Geological Survey, Estimated Use of Water in the United States. Retrieved September 9, 2026. https://understandidaho.com/data/usgs-water-use/.
Cite U.S. Geological Survey directly for the figures themselves.
This page was last updated .