The Newsletter for the South Platte Decision Support System

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SPDSS Colorado water Conservation boarj, Colorado Division of water Resources SPDSS is a part of Colorado's Desicision Support System, a water management system. The The goal of CDSS is to assist users in making informed decisions regarding historic and future use of water. SPDSS The SPDSS team consists of members of various state organizations, such as the Colorado Team Water Conservation Board and the Colorado Division of Water Resources, and various consultants. For additional information, please visit the website at http: / /cdss.state.co.us /. New GIS Products Put to Work Over the last two years through Phases 1 and 2 of the SPDSS, the SPDSS team has been developing irrigated parcel boundaries and irrigation ditch service areas containing crop types and sources of irrigation water from 2001, a GIS tool for viewing groundwater data, and a Map Gazetteer displaying the SPDSS Orthoimage Base Map (aerial photography) and irrigated parcels. To come up with the irrigated parcels, crop types and service areas, the SPDSS team hit the road to meet with water commissioners and with individual ditch companies. The ditch companies provide the best information about the water source for each irrigated parcel. The SPDSS team and folks from the ditch companies labored over mark -ups of parcel maps to make them as accurate as possible. The maps were edited in the GIS database and then taken back to water commissioners and ditch companies for a final review. Water districts in the Poudre River Basin and South Platte mainstem from Thornton to Julesburg received the final drafts of the irrigated parcel boundaries and irrigation service areas. Those for the rest of the South Platte Basin were delivered in draft format. A GIS tool for viewing groundwater data contains all of the SPDSS groundwater data organized by aquifer. This setup allows the SPDSS team and others to quickly visualize the data. A Map Gazetteer displays base map GIS data, the SPDSS Orthoimage Base Map, irrigated parcel boundaries and service areas, and data from HydroBase, the State's hydrologic database, for Water Districts 1, 2, 3, and 64. The Map Gazetteer is indexed and each map is printed at either 1:24,000 scale or 1:48,000 scale. The gazetteer is printed on water resistant paper and will be used primarily in the field by Division 1 Water Commissioners to assist them with their daily work. / Products on Website Many of the GIS products are publicly available and can be downloaded at 'N,http://cdss.state.co.us/ftp/gis.asp_,,- Irrigated Parcel Boundaries a Hot Item The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District has used the 2001 irrigated parcel boundaries and crop types developed by the SPDSS team to help them in setting up a system for monitoring crops and irrigated lands on an annual basis. The Central and Lower South Platte Water Conservancy Districts are using the irrigated parcels to assist in carrying out augmentation plans, modeling and visualizing the irrigation in their areas. North Poudre Irrigation Company, in Wellington, Colorado, is using the 2001 irrigated parcels for an inventory of their system and for assessing efficiency of water delivery. They have taken the parcels in their service area and assigned them to individual canal headgates for a more detailed look at their system. The SPDSS team is using the parcels to assist in meetings with water commissioners and to finalize the consumptive use model.