Estimated Water Use in Puerto Rico, 2000

Water-use data were compiled for the 78 municipios of the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico for 2000. Five offstream categories were considered: public-supply
water withdrawals, domestic self-supplied water use, industrial self-supplied
withdrawals, crop irrigation water use, and thermoelectric power fresh water
use. Two additional categories also were considered: power generation instream
use and public wastewater treatment return-flows. Fresh water withdrawals for
offstream use from surface- and ground-water sources in Puerto Rico were
estimated at 617 million gallons per day. The largest amount of fresh water
withdrawn was by public-supply water facilities and was estimated at 540
million gallons per day. Fresh surface- and ground-water withdrawals by
domestic self-supplied users was estimated at 2 million gallons per day and the
industrial self-supplied withdrawals were estimated at 9.5 million gallons per
day. Withdrawals for crop irrigation purposes were estimated at 64 million
gallons per day, or approximately 10 percent of all offstream fresh water
withdrawals. Saline instream surface-water withdrawals for cooling purposes by
thermoelectric power facilities was estimated at 2,191 million gallons per day,
and instream fresh water withdrawals by hydroelectric facilities at 171 million
gallons per day. Total discharge from public wastewater treatment facilities
was estimated at 211 million gallons per day.

[Summary provided by the USGS.]