Water 2025: Preventing Crises and Conflict in the West

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Conservation, Efficiency, and Markets., Improve Water Management and Use Market -Based Approaches To Head off Conflicts 6 Interagency efforts to coordinate both existing and new water conservation programs would improve the return on federal dollars already being spent "on the ground," allowing for marked improvements in water management. ✓The USGS will enhance groundwater monitoring and stream flow - measurement systems in critical areas of the West. This will improve drought evaluations, predictions, and long -term resource planning. States, tribes, and localities would maintain their important role in setting priorities for these enhancements. ,,'Improvements in the coordination of collection and management of snow pack and runoff data in critical watersheds will allow water managers to predict and plan for water shortages earlier than current systems. ✓Reclamation and USGS are partnering on the Watershed River System Management Program to create models that will help farm agencies, drought planners, and others better understand the unique aspects of the basin when they make critical decisions. t h: Reclamation and the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service will continue to construct and manage SnoTel sites across the West that measure and record real -time snow pack data used to develop runoff forecasts for entire watersheds. Such partnerships would be expanded to include watersheds that are suffering shortages of both water and adequate data used to predict and forecast water supply. i