These data support Ruess et al (2025) "Drought impacts to water footprints and virtual water transfers of counties of the United States", Water Resources Research, 61, e2024WR037715, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR037715.

The dataset contains estimates for Virtual Water Content (VWC) and Virtual Water Trade (VWT) for nine unique combinations of three crop categories (cereal grains, produce, and animal feed) and three water sources (surface water withdrawals, groundwater withdrawals, and groundwater depletion) for the years 2012 and 2017 within the Continental United States. The VWC is calculated by dividing irrigation withdrawal estimates (m3) by the production (tons) at the county resolution. The VWT is calculated by multiplying the VWC by the estimated county level food flows (tons) from Karakoc et al. (2022). All VWC estimates are provided at the county resolution according to county GEOID and are given in units of m3/ton. All VWT estimates are given in pairs of origin and destination GEOID’s and provided in units of m3.

When using, please cite as:
Ruess, P.J., Hanley, J., and Konar, M. (2025) "Drought impacts to water footprints and virtual water transfers of counties of the United States", Water Resources Research, 61, e2024WR037715, doi: 10.1029/2024WR037715.