The Distribution of Water Use in Illinois

The Distribution of Water Use in Illinois - More than 1,300 communities in Illinois rely on different sources of water for municipal, industrial, and residential use. Sources of water throughout the state include Lake Michigan, inland surface waters such as rivers and reservoirs, groundwater, or a coMBination of sources. Communities may also purchase water from other communities or from public water distributors, which include private companies, water commissions, water districts, or water agencies. This map depicts the complexity of where communities get their water and the network of water purchases throughout the state for the year 2012. Municipalities and public water distributors are colored-coded according to the source of water they use. The purchase network depicts transactions between communities or public water distributors with arrows going from seller to purchaser. Some communities extract water from their own wells or intakes (withdrawn water), or buy water from another community or public water distributor (purchased water), or may have a combination of withdrawn and purchased water. In 2012, over 1,510 million gallons per day (mgd) were withdrawn for public consumption. Data for this map were gathered by the Illinois Water Inventory Program, which has tracked water use at high-capacity community wells and intakes (over 70 gallons per minute) throughout the state since 1979. This map is available online as a 36" x 54" PDF file (7.2MB).Ope