Water Use Per Capita

Water use per capita measures the amount of water used per person in Champaign County, categorized by public water supply withdrawals and domestic self-supplied withdrawals.

Public water supply withdrawals include the residential water use of households connected to a public supply, but also include withdrawals for industrial, commercial, and power generation uses[1]. Thus, this figure cannot be extrapolated into residential household water use. Domestic self-supplied withdrawals are residential or household withdrawals of households that are not connected to a public water supply, but instead draw water from a private supply, like a well[2].

Both public water supply withdrawals per capita and domestic self-supplied withdrawals per capita decreased between 2005 and 2015, but their trends before 2005 were notably dissimilar. Domestic self-supplied withdrawals increased in the early 1990s, then held steady until 2005, while public water supply withdrawals decreased between 1990 and 1995, then increased between 2000 and 2005.

The public supply withdrawals per capita were consistently higher than the domestic self-supplied withdrawals per capita throughout the period of analysis: as noted above, the category of public supply withdrawals per capita includes more types of water use, and some that tend to be users of larger quantities of water, than the domestic self-supplied withdrawals category.

Although East Central Illinois is a relatively water-rich region, water use, quality, and management remain topics of interest for a future that may hold increases or decreases in the amount of precipitation that can be expected, and the timing and intensity of that precipitation.

This data is sourced from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System’s Web Interface. The data is released every five years.

[1] USGS. (2016). Water Use Terminology.

[2] Ibid.

Source: USGS. (2016). National Water Information System: Web Interface. (Accessed 2 May 2019).