1) in a restrictive sense, the term refers to water that is actually used for a specific purpose, such as for domestic use, irrigation, or industrial processing. In this report, the quantity of water use for a specific category is the combination of self-supplied withdrawals and public-supply deliveries. 2) More broadly, water use pertains to human's interaction with and influence on the hydrologic cycle, and includes elements such as water withdrawal, delivery, consumptive use, wastewater release, reclaimed wastewater, return flow, and instream use. See also offstream use and instream use.

(1) In a restrictive sense, the term refers to water that is withdrawn for a specific purpose, such as for public supply, domestic use, irrigation, thermoelectric-power cooling, or industrial processing. In previous water-use Circulars, water use for the domestic, commercial, industrial, and thermoelectric-power categories included both self-supplied withdrawals and deliveries from public supply. (2) More broadly, water use pertains to the interaction of humans with and influence on the hydrologic cycle, and includes elements such as water withdrawal, delivery, consumptive use, wastewater release, reclaimed wastewater, return flow, and instream use. See also offstream use and instream use.

whenever water is used by an activity or organism, either in the place it is found or by withdrawing it

volume of water used within a surface water management area irrespective of the source of the water resource.

Use of water by agriculture, industry, energy production and households, including in-stream uses such as fishing, recreation, transportation and waste disposal.