The United States Water Withdrawals Database (USWWD) provides a standardized compilation of user-level water withdrawal data across 42 US states. USWWD provides time series of water withdrawals at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions, encompassing 188,857 unique water users, 353,694 points of diversion and use, and 58,439,412 withdrawal volumes included in 7,524,266 records across various sectors. USWWD integrates diverse state-level data sources, standardizing information on water users, withdrawal locations, volumes, source types, and primary water use categories. The withdrawal data combines both direct measurements and various estimation techniques, reflecting the diverse methods utilized by different state agencies in reporting water usage. USWWD addresses significant gaps in national water use data, enabling researchers to conduct detailed analyses of water withdrawal patterns, trends, and drivers across space, time, and sectors. This granular dataset supports a wide range of applications, including water resource management, planning, and policy development. By providing the most detailed national water use data to date, USWWD facilitates new understanding of how society uses water.

This HydroShare data repository contains the complete USWWD dataset, organized by state in individual folders under the Data directory. Each state folder contains two primary files: the Water Use Characteristics file, which includes detailed tabular data on water withdrawal volumes, use sectors, measurement methods, water sources, types, and data flags; and the Water Withdrawal or Use Locations file, which provides location data including latitude and longitude coordinates for water diversion points and users. The repository also houses essential code in the Code directory, featuring Jupyter Notebooks for subclassifying unspecified water use categories, conducting data flagging assessments, and generating visualizations presented in the data descriptor (under review at Nature's Scientific Data) documenting USWWD database creation. Additionally, the repository includes metadata tables and the communication protocol used for communicating with state agencies that provided the source data. The repository also contains USGS five-year water use data products from 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 that were used for comparison with USWWD data.