Pennsylvania State University, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, University Park, PA, USA.
Earth Systems Research Center, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA.
Sci Data. 2024 Jun 6;11(1):598. doi: 10.1038/s41597-024-03434-6.
In the arid and semi-arid Western U.S., access to water is regulated through a legal system of water rights. Individuals, companies, organizations, municipalities, and tribal entities have documents that declare their water rights. State water regulatory agencies collate and maintain these records, which can be used in legal disputes over access to water. While these records are publicly available data in all Western U.S. states, the data have not yet been readily available in digital form from all states. Furthermore, there are many differences in data format, terminology, and definitions between state water regulatory agencies. Here, we have collected water rights data from 11 Western U.S. state agencies, harmonized terminology and use definitions, formatted them for consistency, and tied them to a Western U.S.-wide shapefile of water administrative boundaries.
在美国西部干旱和半干旱地区，水资源的获取受到水权法律制度的调控。个人、公司、组织、市政当局和部落实体都拥有宣称其水权的文件。州水监管机构对这些记录进行整理和维护，这些记录可用于解决水资源获取方面的法律纠纷。虽然这些记录是美国西部所有州的公开数据，但尚未从所有州以数字形式方便地获取这些数据。此外，各州水监管机构在数据格式、术语和定义方面存在许多差异。在这里，我们从美国西部 11 个州的机构收集了水权数据，协调了术语和使用定义，对其进行了格式化以保持一致，并将其与美国西部水资源管理边界的 shapefile 相关联。
