Water 2025: Preventing Crises and Conflict in the West

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using Cooperative Water Program funds. The program also funds approximately 750 interpretative projects targeted at specific water - resources issues, such as the effects of urbanization, agricultural practices, and energy development on water quality. "Our community 's partnership with USGS is saving hundreds of millions of dollars in meeting federal mandates of the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts through the Federal State Cooperative Program " —Bill Gaffi, General Manager, Unified Sewage Agency of Washington County, Oregon Because data collected in the Cooperative Water Program are directly comparable, regional and national - scale syntheses of the data are possible. Examples of these syntheses include using historical streamflow information to evaluate regional drought and climate variability, and development of a technique for estimating time of travel for rivers, which provide information for estimating the arrival time for accidental chemical spills. More recently, an analysis of nationally consistent information on arsenic concentrations in 18,000 wells collected across the country, mainly through the Cooperative Water Program, alerted EPA to potential problems in many o Hawaii ® Generally highest arsenic e9' concentrations 4 oyy � Alaska O Generally lowest arsenic concentrations O Insufficient data Arsenic concentrations in ground water, a map product of the Cooperative Water Program (http: / /water.usgs.gov /coops. areas and is being used to formulate a new drinking -water standard for arsenic. Hydrologic data and results of inter- pretive projects are published as USGS reports, which are publicly available. In addition, more and more projects result in Internet products ranging from descriptive home pages and online reports, to interactive interfaces that allow users to run predictive models and conduct sophisticated statistical analyses using data that are available online. Results from many interpretive studies, which are local or regional in scope, have broad transferability to other parts of the Nation where similar water- resources issues exist. Data collected by the Cooperative Water Program are in- corporated into the National Water Information System (NWIS). NWIS contains hydrologic information collected by the USGS during the past 120 years. It includes streamflow data from 21,000 sites, water levels from over 1,000,000 wells, and chemical data from rivers, streams, lakes, springs, 0 0 60000 W N W m 10000 U s J g 1000 USGS 02225000 ALTAMAHA RIVER NEAR BAXLEY, GA Nov Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov Jan Mar 1999 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2001 2001 EXPLANATION — DAILY MEAN DISCHARGE — MEDIAN DAILY STREAMFLOW BASED ON 30 YEARS OF RECORD X MEASURED DISCHARGE Provisional Data Subject to Revision Sample hydrograph from the National Water Information System (NWIS), which includes online access to millions of water records. and ground water at 338,000 sites. All of these data are pub- licly available, and can be readily accessed via the Internet (htip:/ /water. usgs. eov /nwis /). An external task force reviewed the Cooperative Water Program in 1999. A report (USGS Circular 1192) describing the review and its 57 recommendations can be found at http: / /water.us g ov/pubs /circ /circl192 /. "In today's climate of growing demands on, and increas- ing competition for, the Nation's water resources, there is an increased need for all types of water - related data and analyses now and in the fiaure. The Cooperative Water Program offers the highest level of scientific knowledge, objectivity, and technical expertise. " — External Task Force Review of the United States Geologi- cal Survey Federal -State Cooperative Water Program, August 1999 For more information, contact: Jim Peters, Program Coordinator U.S. Geological Survey 409 National Center, Reston, VA 20192 (703) 648 -6843 email: jgpeters @usgs.gov