Visualizing Water Usage with Google Earth

Circle of Blue, a great website and resource dedicated to reporting the global water crisis, has created a module for Google Earth that allows users to visualize U.S. water consumption by state. The nifty educational module overlaps information from the U.S. Drought monitor so that you can compare a state's water consumption with the severity of drought in the region.

I love the idea for the water usage by state module and enjoyed seeing the varying columns of water protruding from each state to reflect how much water each state withdrawals. Hopefully there are plans to continue updating the module with more detailed information, such as use by sector, per capita consumption, groundwater/surface water withdrawals, etc. The module uses data from the USGS and better data should be available soon when the USGS releases its newest report on Estimated Use of Water in the United State Also, the drought overlay seemed a little buggy but it could have been the old, slow computer I used to run the application.

To download the module, click here.