Procedures for Projecting Rural Water Use in the Chesapeake Bay Area

This report documents the procedure and results of the projection of water use in the Chesapeake Bay Study Area, an area which encompasses fifty-six counties from the states of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The study was done for the Baltimore District Corps of Engineers, which is formulating long-term water and land management plans for the area, and it follows their existing conditions report. Aspects of the water demand considered were agricultural and rural domestic water needs. In the process of formulating agricultural demand, projections were made of crop production, from which the Soil Conservation Service estimated irrigation demands, and of livestock production. Average size farms and farm population were estimated in the projection of rural domestic demand. A Spillman type procedure was used for most of the projections, and OBERS state projections were used wherever possible as control totals. The counties were grouped into fifteen subareas, and projections were made at the subarea level.