Modeling, Measuring, and Mapping U.S. Water Use

Dr. Landon Marston
Associate Professor
Virginia Tech

Monday, December 1, 2025
2:30pm
HAMP 2118

Abstract

As U.S. water supplies face increasing stress from climate variability and growing demand, understanding who uses water, how much they use, and where they use it is essential for long-term planning. Our research works to fill this critical data gap, with a particular focus on irrigated agriculture, the nation's largest water consumer. This talk will present our group's multi-pronged approach to improving water use estimates, which combines crop modeling, remote sensing, and analysis of measured water withdrawals and infrastructure. We will discuss a new dataset from crop growth models that quantifies monthly water consumption (surface, ground, and rain water) for 30 top U.S. irrigated crops from 1981-2019, revealing key trends in crop-specific water consumption. We will also evaluate the accuracy of remotely sensed evapotranspiration (OpenET) for calculating irrigation by comparing it to flowmeter data at field, water right, and regional scales. Finally, we introduce the United States Water Withdrawals Database (USWWD), a novel compilation of user-level data from 42 states that provides unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution for analyzing withdrawal patterns, and the United States Groundwater Well Database (USGWD), a database of 14.2 million well records with attributes, such as well purpose, location, depth, and capacity. Together, these complementary research thrusts provide a robust data infrastructure essential for managing water resources in an increasingly uncertain future.

Bio

Dr. Landon Marston is an Associate Professor in the Charles Edward Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech and an Affiliate of the Global Change Center. His research investigates the complex interactions between human and water systems, aiming to advance sustainable, resilient, and equitable water resources management. Dr. Marston and his team use process-based and data-driven models to examine water use and scarcity across sectors and scales, from local irrigation practices to national infrastructure and policy. His work has received multiple honors, including the US National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the American Geophysical Union Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award. Prior to academia, Dr. Marston worked in both public and private sectors of water resources engineering. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an M.E. from Texas A&M University, and a B.S. and M.B.A. from the University of Kentucky.