Sustainable Development Goals - 17 Goals to Transform our World

Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Indicator 6.5.1: Degree of integrated water resources management implementation (0–100)

Estimated acres of US farm land irrigated

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This table provides metadata for the actual indicator available from US statistics closest to the corresponding global SDG indicator. Please note that even when the global SDG indicator is fully available from US statistics, this table should be consulted for information on national methodology and other US-specific metadata information.

Actual indicator available Irrigation by Estimated Quantity of Water Applied to farm land
Actual indicator available - description Total Farms, Acres Irrigated, Acre-feet of water applied
Date of national source publication November 2014
Method of computation National surveys are structured in 4 components: policies, institutions, management tools, and financing. Within each component there are questions with defined response options giving scores of 0- 100. Questions scores are aggregated to the component level, and each component score is equally weighted to give an aggregated indicator score of 0-100. The method builds on official UN IWRM status reporting, from 2008 and 2012, of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation from the UN World Summit for Sustainable Development (1992).
Periodicity Every five years
Scheduled update by national source
U.S. method of computation National Agricultural Statistics Service: Data are derived from the Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey (FRIS) sampled from the Census of Agriculture irrigation data. Farm definition: A farm is any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census or survey year. Acre-feet of water: An acre-foot of water is the quantity of water required to cover one acre to a depth of one foot. This is equivalent to 43,560 cubic feet or 325,851 gallons. Acres irrigated: Acres or area irrigated are the acres of agricultural land to which water was applied by any artificial or controlled means such as sprinklers, flooding, furrows, ditches, gated pipe, hand watered, capillary mats, trough irrigation, ebb-and-flood irrigation, sub-irrigation, and spreader dikes including pre-planted, partial, and supplemental irrigation. Land flooded was to be included as irrigated only if the water was diverted to agricultural land by dams, canals, or other works.
Comments and limitations All Years: Excluded from these data are institutional, research, and experimental operations. Data are strictly for water used for irrigation on farm land only. 2008: Data does not include non-horticultural land use for horticultural operations. 2003: Data contains horticultural operations which reported $10,000 or less in sales. Horticultural operations with $10,000 or more in sales were not included. The U.S. Geological Survey conducts a water resource census every five years which includes all water use within the country http://water.usgs.gov/watercensus/ there is also a water use website http://water.usgs.gov/watuse/
Date metadata updated
Disaggregation geography National, by State and Water Resources Regions
Unit of measurement Acre-feet of water
Disaggregation categories
International and national references
Time period Conducted every five years. Referenced time period is the previous calendar year. Data collection period was five months.
Scheduled update by SDG team November 2019

This table provides information on metadata for SDG indicators as defined by the UN Statistical Commission. Complete global metadata is provided by the UN Statistics Division.

Indicator name Degree of integrated water resources management implementation (0- 100)
Target name By 2030, implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate.
Global indicator description This indicator reflects the extent to which integrated water resources management (IWRM) is implemented. It takes into account the various users and uses of water with the aim of promoting positive social, economic and environmental impacts on all levels, including transboundary, where appropriate.
UN designated tier 1
UN custodial agency UNEP (Partnering Agencies; UN Water, IUCN, Ramsar)
Link to UN metadata Link opens in a new window
Organisation National Agricultural Statistics Service/Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey
Agency Staff Name Nicole Norris
Agency Survey Dataset National Agricultural Statistics Service/Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey
Notes Web source: Table 4. Estimated Quantity of Water Applied: 2013 and 2008 https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Farm_and_Ranch_Irrigation_Survey/
Title
Link to data source