The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Availability and Use Assessment Program is updating approaches for providing estimates of water use with nationally consistent models and improved water use data collection techniques. Models are being developed to estimate water withdrawal and consumptive use for 8 categories of use (public supply, domestic, irrigation, thermoelectric power, self-supplied industrial, mining, livestock, and aquaculture). The work presented here is focused on estimating water use for aquaculture. Understanding and estimating water use for the aquaculture industry in the US can help answer important questions used to inform decision makers tasked with ensuring the long-term success of aquaculture and support water management decisions. The aquaculture industry in the continental United States used about 7,550 million gallons per day of fresh water in 2015, and as demands for freshwater increase, understanding aquaculture water use will continue to be important for sustaining the aquaculture industry and our nation’s water resources. Historically, water use has been estimated for aquaculture using linear equation s and proprietary data sources that have limited the USGS’s ability to provide current and complete water use estimates to the public. New techniques for estimating and assessing water use for aquaculture are in development with a focus on methods that can predict water use independent of the proprietary data used in previous studies and improve the spatial and temporal resolution of aquaculture water use estimates. The aquaculture water use estimation model aims to address the critical question of how the aquaculture industry uses water. These new models will be used to estimate historical and future freshwater demands for aquaculture and how variability in land-use, climate, and socioeconomic factors impact water use. The aquaculture water use model will utilize limited available facility-level and water-use data such as animal types and counts, facility locations and characteristics, and water withdrawal and return data .