Western Water Data

Water rights records for Colorado and New Mexico, in one searchable database.

The official records, pulled straight from the state agencies, normalized into a single format — so the research that takes an afternoon in the state portals takes one query.

What's in it

456,841water rights and points of diversion

173,836Colorado records — all with priority dates

283,005New Mexico records — all with coordinates

1850earliest priority date on file

3,282distinct streams and sources in Colorado

DailyColorado updates at the source

Browse Colorado by county

Free county summaries, straight from the state records: how senior the water is, how much is absolute versus conditional, what it is decreed for, and the ten most senior rights on record — each one linked back to its official state page.

See all Colorado counties →

Questions it answers in one query

Every water right on a given stream or in a given county, ranked by seniority.
What water a company or individual holds — searchable by owner name in New Mexico.
Large irrigation diversions above any threshold, by county or basin.
The full record for any right, with decreed amounts, uses, case numbers and coordinates.

Who it's for

Water brokersDue diligence and prospecting on any basin

Water engineersBasin analysis without the portal work

Water attorneysParties, priorities and case numbers for a matter

Agricultural lendersThe seniority behind the land you finance

Where the data comes from

Everything here comes from official state open-data channels: the Colorado Division of Water Resources (CDSS/HydroBase) and the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (WATERS Points of Diversion). License terms for each source were reviewed before ingestion. Every record keeps its original form and carries a link back to its official source page, so any row can be verified at the primary source. Records are sampled and checked field by field against the state systems after every load.

Try it on your own data

Tell me a county, stream or basin you work in and I'll run the query and email you the results as a spreadsheet — no charge, no obligation, nothing to install.

erik@westernwaterdata.com

Working with the data directly? See the API documentation.