Water Resources Discipline ITAC Activities

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FYI -- one of my action items was to request these National Map briefings for our Districts. Mark was very enthusiastic about it. Regarding the stream gage locations on the NHD that is still in the works but the actual methods are still being worked out.

Katherine

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Katherine Lins
Chief, Office of Water Information, WRD
U.S. Geological Survey
440 National Center
Reston, VA 20192
703-648-5014
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Dear RG's:

I recently attended a small conference in Denver put on by WRD, Geography, and EPA to talk about the role of The National Map in water applications. It was a good opportunity to engage with a sister discipline on developing applications that build on our efforts. An even better opportunity has emerged as a result. WRD has asked me if we could have someone (probably our liasons in most cases) brief all of the WRD district offices on The National Map. There are several purposes; 1) give the district office staff a "conversational knowledge" of this activity. It is one of the most visible activities in the USGS and our staff, even in other disciplines, should be able to talk comfortably about the basics; 2) start to introduce the WRD scientists to The National Map as a tool for furthering their own research; 3) gain feedback from the districts on their issues/concerns/ideas about the implementation as it continues to evolve. The water folks will be particularly keen to hear about NHD, so we should be prepared for that.

Please work within your Region to develop a plan for visiting all (if possible) of the districts in the coming months. We can provide briefing materials for your use from HQ if you wish. Doing this over the next few months will be good timing as the districts are undertaking a process to link the stream gage locations to the NHD during this same time. Let's let them know how that work fits in the big picture.

Please keep Katherine Lins and me in the loop as you are able to fit these briefings into your other activities.

Thanks,
Mark