IWIP Data
The Illinois Water Inventory Program’s priority is to develop and maintain a database of high-capacity water wells and intakes in Illinois along with the amounts of water they withdraw from surface water and groundwater sources. The goal is to centralize our state’s diverse array of water quantity information. IWIP data is used in water research both at the Illinois State Water Survey and by external organizations in order to support the science that goes into understanding the water needs of Illinois.
Water supply planning in Illinois cannot succeed without a program to collect basic information on water withdrawals. Such data are fundamental to answering questions about rates, locations, and purpose of withdrawal and are essential for rational estimation of future water withdrawal needs.
Data Uses
Current uses of the data collected through the IWIP program include:
- Determination of community water supply usage
- Examination of groundwater level observations and groundwater withdrawals (for example, comparisons of potentiometric surface maps of the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer system and pumpage from that aquifer system)
- Water use projections
- Comparisons of aquifer withdrawals to estimated aquifer recharge (use-to-yield mapping). See An Analysis of Groundwater Use to Aquifer Potential Yield in Illinois
- Regional groundwater modeling, such as performed for Kane County. See Water Resources Investigations for Kane County, Illinois
- Determination of groundwater use for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting Program
- Environmental impacts (for example, the impact of a toxic spill on aquifers or surface water)
- Impact of high-capacity wells on neighboring wells
- Publication in map form on the Arc/IMS portion of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s Source Water Assessment Program (SWAP) website.
Requesting Data
IWIP water withdrawal data is separated into 3 main categories: public water supply, industrial/commercial, and irrigation. We are able to provide facility-level or source-level public water supply water use data. Industrial/commercial and irrigation data is considered private data. This data is only available at an aggregated county-level or watershed-level due to privacy agreements unless given written permission from the entity that reported the data.
Data spanning from 1978 through 2023 is currently available.
If you are interested in receiving IWIP data, please reach out to Cora Wessman, IWIP Coordinator, at (217)333-5838 or cwessm3@illinois.edu with a description of the data you are interested in as well as the purpose of the data request.
For requests specific to wells or intakes and their attribute/location data, please reach out to Bill Saylor at (217) 333-9043 or gwinfo@isws.illinois.edu.
