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Water Resources Programs
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State and
Regional -- The USGS manages water information at offices
located throughout the United States. Although all offices are
tied together through a Nation-wide computer network, each collects
data and conducts studies in a particular area. Local information
is best found at these sites.
USGS Programs Managed by the Water Resources Discipline:
- Cooperative Water Program
-- The Cooperative Program, a partnership between the USGS and
State and local agencies, provides information that forms the
foundation for many of the Nation's water-resources management
and planning activities.
- National Streamflow
Information Program (NSIP) -- The National Streamflow Information
Program (NSIP) is a conceptual plan developed by the USGS for
a new approach to the acquisition and delivery of streamflow
information.
- National Water Quality
Assessment Program (NAWQA) -- Since 1991, USGS scientists
with the NAWQA program have been collecting and analyzing data
and information in more than 50 major river basins and aquifers
across the Nation. The goal is to develop long-term consistent
and comparable information on streams, ground water, and aquatic
ecosystems to support sound management and policy decisions.
The NAWQA program is designed to answer these questions:
- What is the condition of our Nation's streams and ground
water?
- How are these conditions changing over time?
- How do natural features and human activities affect
these conditions?
- Toxic Substances Hydrology
(Toxics) Program -- provides unbiased earth science information
on the behavior of toxic substances in the Nation's hydrologic
environments. The information is used to avoid human exposure,
to develop effective cleanup strategies, and to prevent further
contamination.
- Ground Water
Resources Program -- The Ground-Water Resources Program
encompasses regional studies of ground-water systems, multidisciplinary
studies of critical ground-water issues, access to ground-water
data, and research and methods development. The program provides
unbiased scientific information and many of the tools that are
used by Federal, State, and local management and regulatory
agencies to make important decisions about the Nation's ground-water
resources.
- Hydrologic Research and Development -- conducts basic and
problem oriented hydrologic research in support of the mission
of the USGS. The program is designed to encourage pursuit of
a diverse agenda of research topics aimed at providing new knowledge
and insights into varied and complex hydrologic processes that
are not well understood.
- Hydrologic Networks and Analysis
(HNA)
Subprograms:
- Water Information Coordination
Program (WICP) -- ensures the availability of water information
required for effective decisionmaking for natural resources
management and environmental protection and to do it cost effectively.
- Drinking Water Programs
-- The wide range of monitoring, assessment, and research activities
conducted by the USGS to help understand and protect the quality
of our drinking-water resources is described on these pages.
These studies are often done in collaboration with other Federal,
State, Tribal, and local agencies.
- National Stream Quality
Accounting Network (NASQAN) -- focus is on monitoring the
water quality of four of the Nation's largest river systems--the
Mississippi (including the Missouri and Ohio), the Columbia,
the Colorado, and the Rio Grande.
- Hydrologic Benchmark
Network (HBN) -- was established in 1963 to provide long-term
measurements of streamflow and water quality in areas that are
minimally affected by human activities. These data were to be
used to study time trends and to serve as controls for separating
natural from artificial changes in other streams. The network
has consisted of as many as 58 drainage basins in 39 States.
- National Water Summary
Program -- a series pf publications designed to increase
public understanding of the nature, geographic distribution,
magnitude, and trends of the Nation's water resources. It often
is referred to as the USGS "encyclopedia of water."
- Water, Energy, and
Biogeochemical Budgets (WEBB) -- understands the processes
controlling water, energy, and biogeochemical fluxes over a
range of temporal and spatial scales and to understand the interactions
of these processes, including the effect of atmospheric and
climatic variables.
- National Irrigation Water
Quality Program -- A Department of Interior program to identify
and address irrigation-induced water quality and contamination
problems related to Department of Interior water projects in
the west.
International Programs:
- EXACT -- The Executive
Action Team Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources, Water
Data Banks Project consists of a series of specific actions
to be taken by the Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians that
are designed to foster the adoption of common, standardized
data collection and storage techniques among the Parties, improve
the quality of the water resources data collected in the region,
and to improve communication among the scientific community
in the region. The project is managed by an Executive Action
Team, EXACT, comprised of water experts from Israeli, Jordanian,
and Palestinian water-management agencies. Technical and financial
support to EXACT is contributed by Australia, Canada, the European
Union, France, the Netherlands, and the United States.
- Global Drainage
Basins Program (database) -- Currently at the EROS Data
Center, UNEP, NASA, and the USGS are developing continental
drainage basins from the 30 arc second (~1-km) digital elevation
models (DEM). The goals of the project are two-fold. The first
goal is to produce the most realistic, verified drainage basins
from the DEM. The second goal is to compare the drainage areas
from the 30 arec second (~1-km) source to existing basin sources.
A comparative analysis of what drainage source produces the
best physical boundary will benefit researchers, scientists,
and individuals that use hydrological feature data for modeling,
calculating, and assessing environmental problems.
- Watercare
-- Water problems in the Middle East are common because most
of the area has semi-arid to arid climatic conditions. A multilateral
track was established to focus on issues of common interest
and importance throughout the region that can best be addressed
on a regional basis. The multilateral track consists of five
working groups: (1) Working Group on Water Resources, (2) Working
Group on the Environment, (3) Working Group on Regional Economic
Development, (4) Working Group on Refugees, and (5) Working
Group on Arms Control and Regional Security.
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