USGS Water Program accomplishments and emerging issues

To:       GS-W All 
cc:       elt 
Subject:  USGS Water Program accomplishments and emerging issues


Dear Colleagues in the Water Resources Discipline:   

As we enter into the new fiscal year (FY) and water year, I want to share 
with you some of my thoughts on our accomplishments and some of the 
exciting opportunities we have in our future.  I also want to acknowledge 
the difficulty we all face with recent terrorism in the United States and 
hostilities overseas.  These events challenge us to keep our focus on 
mission, but it is important that we do so.  We are putting significant 
efforts into seeing that our data and expertise are put to use to help 
mitigate possible terrorist threats to our Nation's water supply.   

I want to thank you all for your efforts at making FY 2001 such a 
successful year.  Water Resources staff across the Nation accomplished 
much for which we should all be proud.  Let me now mention some recent 
accomplishments and emerging areas in each of the major sub-disciplines of 
our water resources program. 

Water Quality:  The strength of our water-quality program lies in the 
combination of consistent and well-documented field techniques and 
innovative and high quality laboratory analysis.  Field techniques 
training, including formal training courses at the National Training 
Center and the national water-quality field techniques workshop in New 
Orleans have been major contributors to our success.  Also, the constant 
effort to keep the National Field Manual up to date and technically 
accurate is a great contribution.  Our National Water Quality Laboratory 
continues to develop and provide us with new and better analytical 
capabilities to assess contaminants of emerging concern (such as 
pharmaceuticals and waste-water indicator compounds) as well as mercury, 
pesticides, and volatile organic compounds. 

I believe that a major new direction in our water-quality programs will be 
associated with microbial pathogens.  Growing issues of human and animal 
health, and now the possibility of bioterrorism, highlight the importance 
of improved knowledge of the presence, source and fate of pathogens.  The 
combination of our understanding of hydrologic systems, methods of 
sampling, and our expertise at new DNA- or RNA-based methods of source 
tracking makes the USGS well poised to make major contributions to the 
understanding of these issues.  With regard to pathogens we are still in a 
phase of experimentation with emerging methods.  This experimentation has 
a very solid base, involving District scientists, National Research 
Program (NRP) scientists, scientists in the Geologic and Biological 
disciplines of the USGS, and our university colleagues.  Within a few 
years we will have established a set of accepted new procedures that will 
help water-quality managers develop effective strategies to prevent 
water-borne disease.   

Another trend I see in water quality is our development of real-time 
water-quality data using surrogates such as turbidity as an indicator of 
bacteria, phosphorus or suspended sediment.  This valuable work, being 
pioneered in the Kansas District, poses many scientific, technical and 
policy challenges, but we are up to the job.  I believe that these 
approaches will soon be revolutionizing the delivery of water quality data 
just as we revolutionized the delivery of streamflow data in the 1990's. 

I see our water-quality science having great impact on issues of national 
concern.  For example, policy decisions regarding the use of MTBE and 
pesticides are being made in the context of the large data sets we have 
collected and interpreted.  Similarly, our surveys and research on the 
cycling of arsenic, mercury and major nutrients are vital contributions to 
the national policy debates on standards and controls.  We have a high 
profile on these issues through our publications, our work with the White 
House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and through Congressional 
briefings and hearings. 

As you recall, the budget submitted to Congress for FY 2002 proposed to 
make significant reductions in our water-quality programs.  Our 
cooperators and information users voiced their disagreement.  They told 
the Congress and the Administration that the USGS plays an important role 
for the Nation in providing an unbiased and independent source of data, 
interpretation, and research to support environmental quality decisions.  
The result is that virtually all of the proposed cuts were restored. 

Ground Water:  The USGS continues to take a leadership role in the 
development of advanced geophysical techniques and models of ground-water 
flow.  The release of MODFLOW 2000 is another landmark with the inclusion 
of new modules for lake-aquifer interactions and solute transport and with 
the integration of parameter estimation into the modeling package itself.  
Our ground-water studies are benefiting from a much greater understanding 
of the geologic setting achieved through close collaborations with our 
colleagues in the Geology discipline.  For example, in Southern California 
the Earthquake Program recognizes the need for detailed knowledge of the 
stratigraphy of basins such as Los Angeles to help improve predictions of 
ground motion in response to earthquakes.  At the same time, our 
hydrogeologists have the need to characterize the very same stratigraphy.  
Good planning and communications between our staffs has led to joint 
drilling plans and large joint investments in new drilling capabilities.  
Other joint efforts include the Georgia Coastal Sound Science Program, the 
Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater, and the Middle Rio Grande Basin study.  One 
of my goals for the next few years is to make sure that we have even more 
cases where our scientists jointly plan and execute an increasing number 
of geologic and hydrologic studies. 

Innovations in the measurement of recharge are an important contribution 
that we have been making.  New techniques have been developed in the NRP, 
Districts, and the Yucca Mountain Project, including the expanded use of 
natural chemicals and temperature as tracers.  Another technology that 
promises to change the way we approach studies of depletion and recharge 
is the use of microgravity measurements as pioneered by the Arizona 
District.  A surprising development has been the rapid spread of real-time 
ground-water level monitoring.  We already have over 600 wells 
instrumented for real-time transmission of water-level data.  This 
information can be very helpful to regional water managers (especially 
during droughts), can help us save operational costs and improve the 
quality of our data, and help to raise public awareness of ground water as 
a dynamic, and sometimes vanishing, resource. 

More and more we are being called on to study ground-water systems because 
of a biological concern.  Ground water is essential to maintaining base 
flow in streams and to the character of caves.  It is also crucial to the 
temperature and chemical conditions of rivers, lakes, wetlands and 
estuaries.  More and more we are learning how important ground-water flow 
and storage can be to aquatic communities.  This issue presents a 
wonderful challenge for the USGS to find the common ground for studies 
involving ground-water hydrologists and biologists. 

This year we are well on our way towards continuing the 50-year history of 
producing the popular 5-year compilations of the Nation's water use.  The 
National Research Council is also putting the final touches on what we 
expect will be a very insightful document on proposed future directions 
for water-use studies by the USGS. 

Finally, I want to specifically recognize the Office of Ground Water and 
the National Research Program for the publication of four very important 
Circulars in the last few years.  These are: Ground Water and Surface 
Water: A Single Resource, Sustainability of Ground Water Resources, Land 
Subsidence in the United States, and Ground-Water-Level Monitoring and the 
Importance of Long-Term Water-Level Data.  These publications fulfill an 
important part of our mission.  They help to provide non-specialists with 
a contemporary view of ground-water science and issues and are widely used 
in teaching.  They are among the most popular publications we have 
produced in many years. 

Surface Water:  The most frequent topic we hear about from our cooperators 
and the public is our streamgaging program.  The 1990's was a period of 
decline for the network.  In the early 1990's we were discontinuing about 
90 long-term (>30 years of record) streamgages every year due to a lack of 
funding.  Working closely with our stakeholders and the Congress, we have 
had some success in beginning a process of rebuilding and modernizing the 
program.  In the last 2 years, new Federal funds have enabled us to start 
37 new streamgages, reactivate 73 discontinued streamgages, flood-proof 15 
streamgages, and modernize equipment at 127 streamgages.  Also, we have 
developed the National Streamflow Information Program (NSIP) plan that 
provides a vision of where we want to take this program.  It provides a 
blueprint for the investment of new funds.  Our internal focus on the 
issue of streamflow information has been contagious, and our partners are 
showing great enthusiasm for rebuilding and enhancing the program.  A 
number of States have organized water-monitoring councils, and we have 
played significant roles in these groups.  These councils have helped to 
build the momentum for a robust and modern streamgaging program. 

In the last few years we have made considerable progress in surface-water 
instrumentation.  Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP) are becoming 
common tools in our programs enabling us to work in some complex 
environments that were not possible before.  Rapid innovation on tethered 
ADCP systems has the potential for greatly increasing the number of 
discharge measurements we can make in flood situations and enhancing the 
personal safety of those making the measurements.  Our partnership with 
industry to create user-friendly software for ADCP measurements is a major 
step forward, and we are moving towards new partnerships to push ADCP 
technology to the next level.  We have also been testing a variety of 
radar-based technologies to find ways to do more of the streamgaging 
process without having to put instruments in the water or personnel over 
the water.  In short, it is an exciting time for advances in streamgaging 
technology. 

The future of streamflow information delivery is beginning to emerge 
through systems like the Massachusetts Streamstats program, where users 
can work through a web interface to determine the streamflow 
characteristics at any location on any stream in the State, using 
streamflow-basin characteristics models and GIS technology.  This 
development makes it clear just how important the linkage is between our 
flow and water-quality data, and the geospatial framework for surface 
water (the watershed boundaries, the National Hydrography Data Set, and 
the Elevation Derivatives for National Applications).  Our partnership 
with the USGS Geography discipline and with the Environmental Protection 
Agency and other agencies in creating this framework is crucial to our 
future ability to manage water information and to model the complex 
relationships of rivers, water use, water quality, and the landscape.  I 
am pleased to see that we have made real progress on these products in the 
past year. 

Information Delivery:  The NWIS staff has accomplished a great deal this 
year.  The release of NWIS 4_1 is a major step forward for our ability to 
handle data.  This new release has resulted in significant improvements in 
the way that we store and process our water-quality data.  The field of 
water quality has evolved in the last decade and these changes were very 
much needed to serve today's programs.  We look forward to enhancements in 
streamflow data processing in upcoming releases.  The NWIS-Web staff has 
similarly accomplished great things.  It is really wonderful to see such a 
useful and flexible interface that enables everyone to have easy access to 
our vast data holdings.  This system holds 181 million daily streamflow 
values, 7.2 million ground-water levels, 63 million chemical analyses and 
data on 7570 sites with real-time data.  The ability to move 
back-and-forth between water quality and quantity, or between historical 
and real-time, gives us all a glimpse of what integrated scientific data 
really can mean.  We still have many new things we would like to add to 
enhance NWIS-Web and we will do so.  However, it is already a truly great 
and popular product with over 200,000 pages requested per week.   

Finally, the new Waterwatch website takes our real-time streamflow data to 
the next level, allowing users to see the geographic patterns in our data 
rather than seeing things a station at a time.  I expect that in a few 
years we will also have the ground-water level equivalent of Waterwatch.  
Our biggest challenges in real-time data are now: real-time quality 
assurance; enhancing system reliability; and managing the rapidly 
increasing demand for satellite data transmission.  I can report that we 
are making good progress in all of these areas. 

Bureau-level issues:  This is a time of major changes for the USGS.  My 
hope is that the new role of Regional Directors and alignment of line 
management through the Regions can serve to complement our existing 
strengths in program development and customer relations.  The Districts 
have a long history of strong interactions at the State and local level, 
and we in Headquarters continue to work to keep our national level 
partnerships strong.  Our new organization provides opportunities for us 
to become equally strong at the regional level, enabling us to marshal the 
talent of the whole USGS to the issues of regions like the Great Lakes, 
the Columbia River Basin, the Missouri River Basin, the Gulf Coast, etc.  
This added dimension can help to make the USGS even stronger than it has 
been in the past.  The strategic change process is also designed to 
simplify administrative process and policy.  This is no small task and is 
still very much a work in progress.  We must all work together to help 
these changes lead to the potential benefits that we envision. 

Some people wonder about the future role of the Headquarters water staff.  
I want to assure you that the changes that are taking place do not 
diminish the role that we play in program leadership and advocacy, 
technology development, interagency liaison, or quality assurance.  I am 
optimistic that the strong data, interpretive, and research programs of 
the water discipline will do well.  We are delivering the high-quality, 
unbiased, water science and data that the Nation needs.  I continue to be 
proud to be associated with all of you and with the entire USGS.  Best 
wishes for Water Year 2002. 

Bob Hirsch, Associate Director for Water 
November 21, 2001 

**********************************************************
* Robert M. Hirsch   
* Associate Director for Water     
* 409 National Center                  rhirsch@usgs.gov
* U.S. Geological Survey                    703-648-5215
* Reston, VA 20192                         fax 703-648-7031
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