The Mississippi Alluvial Plain (MAP) is a large and productive area for agriculture and aquaculture. These activities generated over $11 billion in economic impact for the region in 2017, and in 2015 accounted for about 23 percent of total national groundwater withdrawals. Groundwater levels have declined in many parts of the aquifer as groundwater pumping has increased. USGS has partnered with state and local agencies, universities, and other partners in the collection of aquaculture and irrigation water withdrawals data at various resolutions and in data driven modeling efforts to quantify seasonal and long-term water use. In this context, there has been significant growth in water use data availability with real-time water use metering sites for aquaculture and irrigation uses seeing an increase from 55 sites in 2018 to 91 sites in 2021. In addition to real-time sites, there is a large network of sites reporting yearly values which has grown from 653 in 2014 to 1872 in 2021. Statistical methods and model output are being combined to synthesize these data streams into a coherent whole to gain a better general understanding and inform water use models. What value do these data have? Are they representative of the rest of the wells which are not metered? How have they improved our understanding of irrigation and aquaculture water use from previous methods? This presentation will provide an overview of these ongoing efforts and answers to these questions.
