Water-Use Data in the United States: Challenges and Future Directions

In the United States, greater attention has been given to developing water supplies and quantifying available waters than determining who uses water, how much they withdraw and consume, and how and where water use occurs. As water supplies are stressed due to an increasingly variable climate, changing land-use, and growing water needs, greater consideration of the demand side of the water balance equation is essential. Data about the spatial and temporal aspects of water use for different purposes are now critical to long-term water supply planning and resource management. We detail the current state of water-use data, the major stakeholders involved in their collection and applications, and the challenges in obtaining high-quality nationally consistent data applicable to a range of scales and purposes. Opportunities to improve access, use, and sharing of water-use data are outlined. We cast a vision for a world-class national water-use data product that is accessible, timely, and spatially detailed. Our vision will leverage the strengths of existing local, state, and federal agencies to facilitate rapid and informed decision-making, modeling, and science for water resources. To inform future decision-making regarding water supplies and uses, we must coordinate efforts to substantially improve our capacity to collect, model, and disseminate water-use data

Accounting for Impact? The Journal Impact Factor and the Making of Biomedical Research in the Netherlands

The range and types of performance metrics has recently proliferated in academic settings, with bibliometric indicators being particularly visible examples. One field that has traditionally been hospitable towards such indicators is biomedicine. Here the relative merits of bibliometrics are widely discussed, with debates often portraying them as heroes or villains. Despite a plethora of controversies, one of the most widely used indicators in this field is said to be the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). In this article we argue that much of the current debates around researchers’ uses of the JIF in biomedicine can be classed as ‘folk theories’: explanatory accounts told among a community that seldom (if ever) get systematically checked. Such accounts rarely disclose how knowledge production itself becomes more-or-less consolidated around the JIF. Using ethnographic materials from different research sites in Dutch University Medical Centers, this article sheds new empirical and theoretical light on how performance metrics variously shape biomedical research on the ‘shop floor.’ Our detailed analysis underscores a need for further research into the constitutive effects of evaluative metrics

The Hydro-Economic Interdependency of Cities: Virtual Water Connections of the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan Area

Water footprinting has revealed hydro-economic interdependencies between distant global geographies via trade, especially of agricultural and manufactured goods. However, for metropolitan areas, trade not only entails commodity flows at many scales from intra-municipal to global, but also substantial intra-metropolitan flows of the skilled labor that is essential to a city’s high-value economy. Virtual water flows between municipalities are directly relevant for municipal water supply policy and infrastructure investment because they quantify the hydro-economic dependency between neighboring municipalities. These municipalities share a physical water supply and also place demands on their neighbors’ water supplies by outsourcing labor and commodity production outside the municipal and water supply system boundary to the metropolitan area. Metropolitan area communities span dense urban cores to fringe agricultural towns, spanning a wide range of the US hydro-economy. This study quantifies water footprints and virtual water flows of the complete economy of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area’s municipalities. A novel approach utilized journey to work data to estimate virtual water flows embedded in labor. Commodities dominate virtual water flows at all scales of analysis, however labor is shown to be important for intra-metropolitan virtual water flows. This is the first detailed water footprint analysis of Phoenix, an important city in a water-scarce region. This study establishes a hydro-economic typology for communities to define several niche roles and decision making points of view. This study’s findings can be used to classify communities with respect to their relative roles, and to benchmark future improvements in water sustainability for all types of communities. More importantly, these findings motivate cooperative approaches to intra-metropolitan water supply policy that recognize the hydro-economic interdependence of these municipalities and their shared interest in ensuring a sustainable and resilient hydro-economy for all members of the metropolitan area

Water scarcity and fish imperilment driven by beef production

Human consumption of freshwater is now approaching or surpassing the rate at which water sources are being naturally replenished in many regions, creating water shortage risks for people and ecosystems. Here we assess the impact of human water uses and their connection to water scarcity and ecological damage across the United States, identify primary causes of river dewatering and explore ways to ameliorate them. We find irrigation of cattle-feed crops to be the greatest consumer of river water in the western United States, implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages and fish imperilment in the region. We assess opportunities for alleviating water scarcity by reducing cattle-feed production, finding that temporary, rotational fallowing of irrigated feed crops can markedly reduce water shortage risks and improve ecological sustainability. Long-term water security and river ecosystem health will ultimately require Americans to consume less beef that depends on irrigated feed crops

Reducing water scarcity by improving water productivity in the United States

Nearly one-sixth of U.S. river basins are unable to consistently meet societal water demands while also providing sufficient water for the environment. Water scarcity is expected to intensify and spread as populations increase, new water demands emerge, and climate changes. Improving water productivity by meeting realistic benchmarks for all water users could allow U.S. communities to expand economic activity and improve environmental flows. Here we utilize a spatially detailed database of water productivity to set realistic benchmarks for over 400 industries and products. We assess unrealized water savings achievable by each industry in each river basin within the conterminous U.S. by bringing all water users up to industry- and region-specific water productivity benchmarks. Some of the most water stressed areas throughout the U.S. West and South have the greatest potential for water savings, with around half of these water savings obtained by improving water productivity in the production of corn, cotton, and alfalfa. By incorporating benchmark-meeting water savings within a national hydrological model (WaSSI), we demonstrate that depletion of river flows across Western U.S. regions can be reduced on average by 6.2–23.2%, without reducing economic production. Lastly, we employ an environmentally extended input-output model to identify the U.S. industries and locations that can make the biggest impact by working with their suppliers to reduce water use ‘upstream’ in their supply chain. The agriculture and manufacturing sectors have the largest indirect water footprint due to their reliance on water-intensive inputs but these sectors also show the greatest capacity to reduce water consumption throughout their supply chains

Cohort Expansion Study of Neoadjvuant Immunoradiotherapy in Locoregionally Advanced HPV+ and HPV- Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Purpose/Objective(s): We recently reported the results of a phase Ib clinical trial in which 10 patients with previously untreated stage I-III (AJCC 8th Ed) p16+ head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) underwent neoadjuvant immunoradiotherapy (NIRT) with nivolumab 240mg IV q2 weeks x3 prior to surgery (NCT03247712). Stereotactic body radiation (SBRT) to gross tumor volume was delivered between doses 1 & 2 of nivolumab in one of two dose finding cohorts: Cohort A (40Gy, 8Gy X5, M-F); and Cohort B (24Gy, 8Gy X3, M-W-F). The pathologic complete response rate (pCR) was 90% and all patients were successfully down-staged prior to surgery. Here we aim to test the hypothesis that nivolumab contributed to the exceptional local response to radiation by modulating the tumor microenvironment via blockade of upregulated PD-L1. Materials/Methods: Following assessment of dose limiting toxicity in the safety portion of the trial, we opened two expansion cohorts that evaluated NIRT at the lower radiation dose (24Gy, 8Gy X3) with and without immunotherapy: Cohort C consisted of patients with stage I-III HPV+ HNSCC who were treated with SBRT alone; Patients in Cohort D had stage III-IV HPV-negative HNSCC and were treated with nivolumab and SBRT as in Cohort B. Surgery in all cohorts was performed five weeks post-SBRT, followed by adjuvant nivolumab 480mg IV q 4 weeks X3 starting four weeks after surgery. The primary endpoints were pathological response by irPRC and rate of pathologic and radiographic down-staging after neoadjuvant therapy. A Simon two-stage optimal design was applied, assuming that a decrement in T or N stage by week 6 in \u3e 10% of cases would be clinically significant (alpha Z.05 level of significance with a power of 90% to detect a difference when the true rate of down-staging _ 33%). Results: Between April 8, 2019 and December 17, 2019, 11 patients with previously untreated, loco-regionally advanced HNSCC involving the oral cavity (NZ2), oropharynx (NZ7), and larynx (NZ2) were enrolled into Cohort C (NZ6) or D (NZ5). Neoadjuvant treatment was well tolerated and there were no grade 3 or 4 adverse events. To date, 8/11 patients completed surgery and had evaluable pathologic reports. Of these, all patients were successfully down-staged and one patient with HPV-negative cancer required adjuvant radiation per protocol. Although the pCR rate was higher in Cohorts A and B than in the expansion cohorts evaluated to date, resection specimens were characterized by major pathologic responses (\u3c10% viable tumor cells) in the majority of patients, as well as robust inflammatory infiltrates into the regression bed, plasma cells and cholesterol clefts. Conclusion: NIRT prior to surgery for loco-regionally advanced HNSCC results in significant rates of major pathologic response and pathologic downstaging regardless of HPV status

Water scarcity and fish imperilment driven by beef production

Human consumption of freshwater is now approaching or surpassing the rate at which water sources are being naturally replenished in many regions, creating water shortage risks for people and ecosystems. Here we assess the impact of human water uses and their connection to water scarcity and ecological damage across the United States, identify primary causes of river dewatering and explore ways to ameliorate them. We find irrigation of cattle-feed crops to be the greatest consumer of river water in the western United States, implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages and fish imperilment in the region. We assess opportunities for alleviating water scarcity by reducing cattle-feed production, finding that temporary, rotational fallowing of irrigated feed crops can markedly reduce water shortage risks and improve ecological sustainability. Long-term water security and river ecosystem health will ultimately require Americans to consume less beef that depends on irrigated feed crops

New water accounting reveals why the Colorado River no longer reaches the sea

Persistent overuse of water supplies from the Colorado River during recent decades has substantially depleted large storage reservoirs and triggered mandatory cutbacks in water use. The river holds critical importance to more than 40 million people and more than two million hectares of cropland. Therefore, a full accounting of where the river’s water goes en route to its delta is necessary. Detailed knowledge of how and where the river’s water is used can aid design of strategies and plans for bringing water use into balance with available supplies. Here we apply authoritative primary data sources and modeled crop and riparian/wetland evapotranspiration estimates to compile a water budget based on average consumptive water use during 2000–2019. Overall water consumption includes both direct human uses in the municipal, commercial, industrial, and agricultural sectors, as well as indirect water losses to reservoir evaporation and water consumed through riparian/wetland evapotranspiration. Irrigated agriculture is responsible for 74% of direct human uses and 52% of overall water consumption. Water consumed for agriculture amounts to three times all other direct uses combined. Cattle feed crops including alfalfa and other grass hays account for 46% of all direct water consumption

Water scarcity and fish imperilment driven by beef production

Human consumption of freshwater is now approaching or surpassing the rate at which water sources are being naturally replenished in many regions, creating water shortage risks for people and ecosystems. Here we assess the impact of human water uses and their connection to water scarcity and ecological damage across the United States, identify primary causes of river dewatering and explore ways to ameliorate them. We find irrigation of cattle-feed crops to be the greatest consumer of river water in the western United States, implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages and fish imperilment in the region. We assess opportunities for alleviating water scarcity by reducing cattle-feed production, finding that temporary, rotational fallowing of irrigated feed crops can markedly reduce water shortage risks and improve ecological sustainability. Long-term water security and river ecosystem health will ultimately require Americans to consume less beef that depends on irrigated feed crops