Abstract
Interbasin water transfers (IBTs) can have a significant impact on the environment, water availability, and economies within the basins importing and exporting water, as well as basins downstream of these water transfers. The lack of comprehensive data identifying and describing IBTs inhibits understanding of the role IBTs play in supplying water for society, as well as their collective hydrologic impact. We develop three connected datasets inventorying IBTs in the United States and Canada, including their features, geospatial details, and water transfer volumes. We surveyed the academic and gray literature, as well as local, state, and federal water agencies, to collect, process, and verify IBTs in Canada and the United States. Our comprehensive IBT datasets represent all known transfers of untreated water that cross subregion (US) or subdrainage area (CA) boundaries, characterizing a total of 641 IBT projects. The infrastructure-level data made available by these data products can be used to close water budgets, connect water supplies to water use, and better represent human impacts within hydrologic and ecosystem models.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 27 |
| Journal | Scientific Data |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
L.T.M. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation grant CBET-2144169 and the U.S. Geological Survey under Grant/Cooperative Agreement No. 13612182-Virgina. L.T.M. and B.R.R. acknowledge the support of the U.S. Geological Survey under Grant/Cooperative Agreement No. G20AP00002. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the U.S. Geological Survey or the National Science Foundation. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the U.S. Geological Survey or the National Science Foundation. The authors would also like to acknowledge the assistance of local, state, and federal water organizations in collecting and verifying data. Specifically, we’d like to acknowledge the help of Tamara Ivahnenko, Laura Medalie, and Ken Eng of the USGS. Lastly, we’d like to acknowledge the undergraduate and graduate researchers - Megan Schantz, Alex Brown, Katherine Sullivan, Sarah Birchard, Bethan Heng, and Anderson Moyers - that helped us send countless emails, make numerous phone calls, and search hundreds of websites to collect data for this study.