New Jersey Geological Survey DGS01-2 Relational Data Files for GIS Display of New Jersey Water Withdrawals from 1990 to 1999 METADATA 1. IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION 1.1 CITATION DGS01-2 Relational Data Files for GIS Display of New Jersey Water Withdrawals from 1990 to 1999 N.J. Geological Survey Digital Geodata Series DGS01-2 Compiled by Jeffrey L. Hoffman, September 2001 Trenton, N.J 08625 1.2 DESCRIPTION 1.2.1 ABSTRACT N.J. Geological Survey Digital Geodata Series DGS01-2 is a collection of ten relational data files in a dBASEIV format that document fresh-water withdrawals in New Jersey by county, HUC11 and HUC14 watersheds, watershed management areas, and water regions.  Data are compiled for calender year 1999 and for a ten-year period from 1990 to 1999.   They are being made available in a digital format to facilitate water-supply planning and watershed management in New Jersey. These data summarize fresh-water withdrawal activities for commercial, industrial, and agricultural users who can produce more than 100,000 gallons of water a day, and are therefore regulated by the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) Bureau of Water Allocation. The dBASE files are designed to be used in conjunction with a set of geographic information systems (GIS) polygon coverages of corresponding polygon coverages available from the NJDEP GIS.  Each file contains data on withdrawal volumes, sources, and uses and a data field used for joining these information to correlative GIS coverages. Metadata files are included that document each data file using the Federal Geographic Data Committee metadata standard. Data are reported for water source and how the water is used, but not where the water is used. Information on water transfers, discharge activities, saline-water withdrawals, and both depletive and consumptive uses are not included. More information on the compilation and interpretation of these data is available from the N.J.Geological Survey Open-File Report OFR 00-1; New Jersey Water Withdrawals 1990-1996, available from the NJDEP Maps and Publications Sales Office. 1.2.2. LIST OF FILES AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION FILE NAME TYPE SIZE(KB) DESCRIPTION Cnty99q.dbf dBASEIV 3 county withdrawals for 1999 Cnty99q.txt ASCII text 16 metadata for Cnty99q.dbf Cnty9099q.dbf dBASEIV 3 average withdrawals by County for 1990 to 1999 Cnty9099q.txt ASCII text 16 metadata for Cnty9099q.dbf H1199q.dbf dBASEIV 15 withdrawals by HUC11 for 1999 H1199q.txt ASCII text 17 metadata for H1199q.dbf H119099q.dbf dBASEIV 15 average withdrawals by HUC11 for 1990 to 1999 H119099q.txt ASCII text 17 metadata for H119099q.dbf H1499q.dbf dBASEIV 88 withdrawals by HUC14 for 1999 H1499q.txt ASCII text 17 metadata for H1499q.dbf H149099q.dbf dBASEIV 88 average withdrawals by HUC14 for 1990 to 1999 H149099q.txt ASCII text 17 metadata for H149099q.dbf Wma99q.dbf dBASEIV 3 withdrawals by watershed managment area for 1999 Wma99q.txt ASCII text 21 metadata for Wma99q.dbf Wma9099q.dbf dBASEIV 3 withdrawals by watershed managment area for 1999 to 1999 Wma9099q.txt ASCII text 22 metadata for Wma9099q.dbf Wr99q.dbf dBASEIV 2 withdrawals by water region for 1999 Wr99q.txt ASCII text 18 metadata for Wr99q.dbf Wr9099q.dbf dBASEIV 2 withdrawals by water region for 1999 to 1999 Wr9099q.txt ASCII text 18 metadata for Wr9099q.dbf 1.2.3. LIST OF KEYWORDS New Jersey water use, water use, New Jersey water withdrawals, water withdrawals, fresh water, watershed, water management area, water region, hydrologic-unit code 1.3. GEOGRAPHIC EXTENT State of New Jersey 1.4. CONTACTS INFORMATION 1.4.1. AUTHOR CONTACT INFORMATION Jeffrey L. Hoffman New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Division of Science, Research & Technology New Jersey Geological Survey PO Box 427 Trenton, NJ 08625 phone: (609) 984-6587 email: jhoffma2@dep.state.nj.us http://www.state.nj.us/dep/njgs/index.html ********************************************************* 2. DATA QUALITY INFORMATION 2.1 NAME OF DATA Water withdrawals in New Jersey 2.2. DATA SOURCE The data in this report are based on reports submitted to the NJDEP'S Water Supply Element. Under NJDEP regulations (N.J.A.C. 7:19 et seq) all nonagricultural water users capable of withdrawing more than 100,000 gallons per day must obtain water-allocation permits. As a condition of these permits, the users must submit summaries of volumes withdrawn on an annual or quarterly basis, depending on the type of allocation permit. Agricultural users must obtain a certification from BWA (N.J.A.C. 7:20A-1 et seq) and meet some of the reporting requirements imposed on permit holders. These data, along with data on the allocation permits and the specific withdrawal locations are maintained by the BWA in computer data bases. (Note: generally only fresh-water withdrawals are regulated. Withdrawals of saline water are not regulated unless they could impact fresh-water resources.) BWA currently (2000) maintains three data bases using the database software Knowledgeman. These are WATERA, WSOURCE and USAGE. WATERA contains information about each water allocation permit or certification. Each has one entry in WATERA. WSOURCE contains information on each withdrawal point. A user may withdraw water from more than one point and may withdraw a mixture of surface and ground water. An allocation permit or certification has as many entries in WSOURCE as it has physical water withdrawal points. USAGE contains the actual withdrawal data. Each entry in it contains data for one specific year for one specific water withdrawal source. Thus, each water allocation permit or certification may have as many entries in USAGE as the number of withdrawal points multiplied by the number of available years of data. The N.J. Geological Survey translated these three data bases into an MS Access data base. Records for 1990 to 1999 were corrected for duplicate entries. They were also examined to identify data gaps and the paper records then researched for missing values. If additional research did not uncover the missing data the data gap was preserved. More research accurately defined the watershed and the physiographic province of each withdrawal point. Some purveyors did not report enough information to allow a water source to be assigned to the withdrawal. These include withdrawals by purveyors which have gone out of business as well as some agricultural withdrawals. These withdrawals are assumed to break out according to the statewide average, with 75 percent of the water coming from surface water and 25 percent from ground water. Water withdrawals by domestic wells are based on 1990 census data of number of wells per county. This number was then adjusted by the reported number of new domestic wells drilled in each county (data provided by the BWA). Domestic wells were assumed to be evenly distributed throughout each county. Domestic withdrawals in watersheds were assumed to be proportional to the area of each county in each watershed. Withdrawals from small, public noncommunity systems (that are not required to report volumes to BWA) were estimated from system capacity information on file with the Bureau of Safe Drinking Water (BSDW). 2.3 DATA RELIABILITY AND QUALIFICATIONS The withdrawal data are self-reported by the water purveyors. They are required to recalibrate flow meters every five years; thus their data are considered to be accurate to within five percent (Diane Zalaskus, BWA, oral communication, 1998). Similar analysis of these data (Nawyn and Clawges, 1995) consider the data from these purveyors to be ‘highly reliable.’ The reported withdrawals for industrial and commercial use are considered to be of the same order of accuracy. The records of agricultural withdrawals are less accurate and may be significantly in error because reported water use is estimated, not metered. The Bureau of Water Allocation cannot estimate percentage of error in these records. In some counties agricultural withdrawals are a significant percentage of total withdrawals. However, on a statewide average, agricultural use is less than five percent of total withdrawals. The data reported here have five important qualifications: (1) Withdrawals are reported on the basis of water source, not the location of eventual water use. For example, Hudson County is supplied almost entirely by surface water withdrawn in Passaic and Morris Counties (Nawyn and Clawges, 1995). Thus, water consumed in Hudson County is reported under Passaic and Morris counties in this report. In general, those counties and watersheds from which water is exported show withdrawals that are disproportionally high for their population. Conversely, counties which import water report water withdrawals that are disproportionally low for their population. (2) Water withdrawn is not equivalent to water consumed. Many purveyors, especially thermo­electric generators and in particular instream hydroelectric plants, are wholly or partially nonconsumptive. In 1988 approximately 79% of surface-water use was nonconsumptive (Saarela, 1992). Thus, the reported volume of surface-water withdrawals does not imply an equivalent reduction in stream-flow volumes. (3) Only fresh-water withdrawals are summarized here. Saline-water users are not required to obtain a water allocation permit unless the diversion impacts fresh water. Thus, the saline-water withdrawals for cooling at the Oyster Creek and Salem nuclear power plants are omitted from this report. (4) All nondomestic well data are from purveyor reports of volumes of water withdrawn. The data here repeat any inaccuracies in these reports. (5) This report does not supply information on the destination of water withdrawn, such as discharge back to the same watershed, transfer to another watershed or evaporation to the atmosphere. It thus cannot supply estimates on what percentage of water withdrawn goes to consumptive or depletive uses. Zripko and Hasan (1994) discuss in detail depletive water use in New Jersey. 2.4 DATA VARIABLES Each of the ten data base files contains 13 fields. The first field is a code which is used to link that file to a corresponding GIS coverage available from the NJDEP. The files Cnty9099q.dbf and Cnty99q.dbf can be joined with with the GIS shape file stco.shp. The files H119099q.dbf, H1199q.dbf, H149099q.dbf and H1499q.dbf can be joined with the GIS shape file dephuc14.shp. The files Wma9099q.dbf, Wma99q.dbf, Wr9099q.dbf and Wr99q.dbf can be joined with the GIS shape file depwmas.shp. The shape files are available on the Internet World-Wide-Web at http://www.state.nj.us/dep/gis/download.htm The remaining 12 fields are defined the same for each file. They are: VARIABLE DESCRIPTION -------------------------------------------------------- TOTALQ Total withdrawals in million of gallons. GW Ground-water withdrawals in millions of gallons. This includes withdrawals from wells and off-stream ponds. This includes withdrawals for all uses of water. SW Surface-water withdrawals in millions of gallons. This includes withdrawals for all uses of water. DELR Withdrawals from the Delaware River in millions of gallons. This includes withdrawals for all uses of water. RIVERS Withdrawals from rivers (other than the Delaware River), streams, on-stream ponds, springs and canals in millions of gallons. This includes withdrawals for all uses of water. RESERV Withdrawals from surface-water reservoirs in millions of gallons. This includes withdrawals for all uses of water. PG Withdrawals for power generation reported from all sources in millions of gallons. ICM Withdrawals for industrial, commercial and mining uses from all sources reported in millions of gallons. PS Withdrawals for potable supply from all sources in millions of gallons. IA Withdrawals for irrigation and agriculture from all sources in millions of gallons. GW_PS Withdrawals for potable supply from ground-water sources in millions of gallons. SW_PS Withdrawals for potable supply from surface-water sources in millions of gallons. Note: Due to the inability to assign some withdrawals to a particular source, for example, if it is unkown whether a particular pond is on a particular stream, the summed volume of withdrawals classified by use may not equal those summarized by source. 2.5 DATA ORGANIZERS Jeffrey L. Hoffman and Andrea Lenhardt 2.6 DATE OF COMPILATION 2001 ********************************************************* 3. DISTRIBUTION INFORMATION These data may be freely distributed providing appropriate reference to their source is maintained. ********************************************************* 4. METADATA REFERENCE INFORMATION 4.1 PUBLICATION DATE September 2001 4.2 AUTHORS Jeffrey L. Hoffman ********************************************************* 5. References Hoffman, J.L., 2000, Data tables for New Jersey water withdrawals, 1990-1996: N.J. Geological Survey Digital Geodata Series DGS00-4, http://www.state.nj.us/dep/njgs/index.html. Hoffman, J.L. and Lieberman, S.E., 2000, New Jersey Water Withdrawals 1990-1996: N.J. Geological Survey Open-File Report OFR 00-1, Trenton, N.J., 123p. Nawyn, J.P. and Clawges, R.M., 1995, Withdrawals of ground water and surface water in New Jersey, 1989-90: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 95-324, West Trenton, N.J., 52p. Saarela, Helve, 1992, 1988 New Jersey water withdrawal report: N.J. Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Water Allocation, Trenton, N.J., 41p Zripko, N.P. and Hasan, Asghar, 1994, Depletive water use project for regional water resource planning areas for New Jersey: N.J. Deptartment of Environmental Planning, Office of Land and Water Planning, Trenton, N.J., 149p. ********************************************************* 6. AUTHOR NOTES The withdrawal information is based on a database maintained by the NJDEP Bureau of Water Allocation. Occasionally, errors are found in that data base and are corrected. This may result in future compilations of withdrawals that are slightly different from what is reported in Hoffman and Lieberman (2000) and the data tables in Hoffman (2000). These changes do not significantly affect the analysis of withdrawal patterns. The data for 1990-1996 were published before as DGS00-4. (Hoffman, 2000). However, DGS00-4 does not provide the data in a GIS-compatible format. In 2000 the boundaries of watershed management areas (WMAs) 17, 18 and 19 changed significantly. The data reported by WMA and WR (water region) here account for this change. The data reported in Hoffman and Lieberman (2000) and Hoffman (2000) have not been corrected for the change in boundaries of these three WMAs. Andrea Lenhardt, Richard Craver, David Singer and Erica Scott assisted considerably in collecting, error checking and assigning locations for withdrawals for 1997-1999.