Public Water Systems Statistics Surveys
The Water Use Efficiency Branch (WUE) conducted annual Public Water Systems Statistics (PWSS) Surveys of selected public water suppliers in the State of California. The PWSS survey was merged into The Electronic Annual Report (EAR) of The California Water Boards in 2014 in conducting EAR Reporting Year 2013 following Senate Bill X7-7 (SBX7-7), which state “The department shall develop a single standardized water use reporting form…”. The Water Boards share part of EAR data with WUE. In 2023, part of the PWSS surveys was moved from EAR to SAFER Clearinghouse, a reporting platform of The California Water Boards.
The PWSS data is used to update the California Water Plan (Bulletin 160), as well as Bulletin 166 – Urban Water Use in California, the Truckee River Operating Agreement (TROA), and helps us estimate regional water demands and plan for future water needs.
The PWSS data include four sections:
- General Information: this section includes population data.
- Active Service Connections: this section includes number of connections by customer class - single-family residential; multi-family residential; commercial-institutional; industrial; landscape irrigation; agricultural irrigation.
- Water Production: this section includes monthly water produced by wells, surface water, purchased water, untreated water, and recycled water.
- Water Deliveries: this section includes monthly water deliveries by customer class and wholesale to other water suppliers.
Digitalized data is available for the years 1994 to the most recent year. New data is added to the dataset when it is available. Paper data is sparsely available from 1980-1993. To request Public Water Systems Statistics Survey data, email us.