acre-foot
American Heritage Dictionary:
Top
a·cre-foot
(ā'kər-fʊt')
n.
The volume of water, 43,560 cubic feet, that will cover an area of one acre to a depth of one foot.
n.
The volume of water, 43,560 cubic feet, that will cover an area of one acre to a depth of one foot.
Top
The amount of water required to cover an area of 1 acre to a depth of 1 foot; equivalent to 43,560 cubic feet (4046.9 m3); sometimes used as a measure of materials in place (e.g., gravel).
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Top
Acre-foot
An acre-foot is a unit of volume commonly used in the United States in reference to large-scale water resources, such as reservoirs, aqueducts, canals, sewer flow capacity, and river flows.
|
Contents
|
Definitions
It is defined by the volume of one acre of surface area to a depth of one foot. Since the acre is defined as a chain by a furlong (66 ft × 660 ft) the acre-foot is exactly 43,560 cubic feet. Thus, the two definitions of the acre foot (differing by about 0.0006%) depend on whether the international or U.S. survey foot is used.
-
1 international acre foot ≡ 43,560 international cubic feet (by definition) = 1233.48183754752 m3 (exactly) = 325,851 3⁄7 U.S. gal (exactly) ≈ 271,328.072596 imp gal 1 U.S. survey acre foot ≡ 43,560 U.S. survey cubic feet (by definition) ≈ 1233.4892384681 m3 ≈ 325,853.383688 U.S. gal[nb 1] ≈ 271,329.700571 imp gal
Discussion
As a rule of thumb in U.S. water management, one acre-foot is taken to be the planned water usage of a suburban family household, annually.[1] In some areas of the desert Southwest, where water conservation is followed and often enforced, a typical family uses only about 0.25 acre-feet of water per year.[2]
The acre-foot (or more specifically the time rate unit of acre-foot per year) has been used historically in the U.S. in many water-management agreements, for example the Colorado River Compact, which divides 15 million acre-feet (MAF) per year or (586 m³/s) among seven western U.S. states.
See also
Notes
- ^ This conversion assumes the international foot is used to define the U.S. gallon and the U.S. survey foot to define the acre foot. If the same foot is used for both, the result is the 325,851 3⁄7 U.S. gal figure as obtained previously.
References
- ^ The state of Montana assumes 1.0 acre-foot per year for a family of five. See Water Rights Bureau, state of Montana (April 13, 2004). "Form No. 627 R8/03 Notice of Water Right" (PDF). Archived from the original on 25 January 2008. http://dnrc.mt.gov/wrd/water_rts/wr_general_info/wrforms/627.pdf. Retrieved 2008-01-30.
- ^ Santa Fe, New Mexico rate averages 0.25 acre-feet per year per household. See Planning Division, Planning & Land Use Department, City of Santa Fe, New Mexico (February 2001). "Water Use in Santa Fe: A survey of residential and commercial water use in the Santa Fe urban area" (PDF). http://www.santafenm.gov/DocumentView.asp?DID=1427. Retrieved 2008-01-30.
 |
This standards- or measurement-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Read more
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture & Construction
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Read more
Mentioned in
The Chicago Tapes: First Set
(2001 Album by Glenn Yarbrough & the Limeliters)
Petroleum reservoir engineering
(petroleum engineering)
Cent
(area)
» More