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2 / INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Water management in the United States has traditionally focused on manipulating the country's abundant supplies of freshwater to meet the needs of users. This "supply management" approach has resulted in the building of large dams and conveyance systems, especially in the West. Increasing development costs, capital shortages, government fiscal restraint, diminishing sources of water supply, polluted water, and a growing concern for the environment have forced water managers and plan- ners to begin to rethink traditional approaches to management and to exper- iment with new ones. Experts on the subject of water (supply and demand) in the western United States agree that the area is in transition from the era of water-supply development to an era of water-demand management and conservation, (Wilkinson, 1985). Quantitative assessments derived from the type of national compilation contained in this report can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative water-management policies and conservation activities. PURPOSE AND SCOPE The purpose of this report is to present consistent and current water-use estimates by State and water-resources region for the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia, Estimates of water withdrawn from surface- and ground-water sources, estimates of consumptive use, and estimates of instream use and wastewater releases during 1990 are presented in this report. The U.S. Geological Survey has compiled similar national estimates every 5 years since 1950 (MacKichan, 1951, 1957; MacKichan and Kammerer, 1961; Murray, 1968; Murray and Reeves, 1972, 1977; and Solley and others, 1983,1988). This series of reports can be used to develop and evaluate trends in water use and to plan for more effective uses of the Nation's water resources in the future. This report discusses eight categories of offstream water use-public supply, domestic, commercial, irrigation, livestock, industrial, mining, and thermoelectric power-and one category of instream use: hydroelectric power. Detailed information for other instream uses, such as navigation, recreation, pollution abatement, and fish habitat, is beyond the scope of this report. Information on wastewater-treatment facilities is given in the "Wastewater Release" section. Information on many of the water-use categories in this report is more detailed than the information presented in previous water-use circulars in this series. For each category of offstream water use, 1990 withdrawal and consumptive-use estimates are discussed and those estimates are compared ~~'" ,JI!