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<br />EXPLANATION OF EQUIVALENT U.S. CUSTOMARY UNITS OF MEASUREMENT <br /> <br /> <br />The principal inch-pound unit of measurement used in this report to <br />express a quantity of water used is million gallons per day. While this unit <br />of measurement is not complex, it is not easy to visualize how much water this <br />represents in terms of everyday water use. The most common sources of water <br />are streams and ground water from wells. A stream that is 1 foot wide and 1 <br />foot deep, where the water is flowing at a velocity of 1 foot per second, <br />discharges at a rate of 1 cubic foot per second. There are 7.48 gallons in a <br />cubic foot and 86,400 seconds in a day, so this stream produces 646,000 <br />gallons per day, or 0.646 million gallons per day. About one hundred times <br />more water than this is needed to supply the average domestic needs of Denver <br />County. A household well commonly is pumped at a rate of about 10 gallons per <br />minute. This is equivalent to 14,400 gallons per day, or 0.014 million <br />gallons per day (if pumped continuously). Finally, a household faucet <br />commonly will produce 4 gallons per minute when fully open. If left on for 1 <br />entire year, the faucet would deliver about 2,100,000 gallons (0.006 million <br />gallons per day). <br /> <br />Water use also is commonly reported in thousands of acre-feet per year. <br />One acre-foot of water is the quantity of water that would fill a I-acre-size <br />pool to a depth of 1 foot. An acre is about 209 feet square and amounts to <br />43,560 square feet, so 1 acre-foot of water is equivalent to 43,560 cubic <br />feet, or about 326,000 gallons. Therefore 1 acre-foot of water per day is <br />equivalent to 0.326 million gallons per day. Also, 1,000 acre-feet per year <br />is equivalent to 0.892 million gallons per day. <br /> <br />Land area in the Western United States often is described using terms <br />from the public land survey system. The largest unit is a township, which is <br />6 miles square. There are about 2,500 townships in Colorado. Townships are <br />subdivided into 36 square sections, each section being 1 mile on a side; a <br />section contains 640 acres. <br /> <br />xi <br />