Estimated public-supply water withdrawals in Puerto Rico, 2019

This data release consists of Microsoft Excel workbooks related to a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) to estimate public-supply water withdrawals for the year 2019. Daily raw-water inflow volume to each PRASA water-treatment plant and water pumped from PRASA public-supply wells on the island in 2019, as well as coordinate information for these facilities were provided by PRASA. The raw data are not publicly available owing to restrictions (sensitivity concern). Contact PRASA directly for more information. Per capita water use derived from domestic-delivery data for 2016 was used to estimate withdrawals from non-PRASA community water supply systems for 2019 due to The lack of of domestic-delivery data for this year. This choice does not likely introduce major errors in the total island-wide water withdrawals as non-PRASA withdrawals are on the order of 1–2 percent of the total withdrawals. The total annual volume withdrawn from PRASA and non-PRASA public-supply wells and surface-water intakes was aggregated by municipality and PRASA public water system identification (PWSID) to obtain total surface-water and groundwater withdrawals for PRASA and non-PRASA systems. In 2019, the total amount of public-supply water withdrawn in Puerto Rico was estimated at 590 million gallons per day (Mgal/d) from freshwater sources. Surface-water withdrawals accounted for 527 Mgal/d (89 percent) and groundwater withdrawals accounted for 63 Mgal/d (11 percent). Disclaimer: In estimating public-supply withdrawals for 2016 and prior years, surface-water withdrawals for each PRASA water treatment plant (WTP) were assigned to a single intake location. For 2017-20, surface-water withdrawals for each PRASA water treatment plant have been split up across multiple intakes based on information provided by PRASA in 2022. This may have affected the total withdrawals by municipality and PWSID. For this reason, we discourage evaluating trends and making comparisons at the municipality and PWSID level between 2017–20 and previous years.

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