Water-Use Data and Research Program

Water managers across the United States require more complete, timely, and accurate water-availability information to support policy and decision-making, specifically, data associated with water withdrawals and consumptive use. Recognizing the limitations of current water-use data, the SECURE Water Act authorized a program that supports activities related to data collection and methods research and development at the State level. The USGS Water-Use Data and Research program (WUDR) will provide financial assistance through cooperative agreements with State water resource agencies to improve the availability, quality, compatibility, and delivery of water-use data that is collected or estimated by States. The Act requires that these State water use and availability datasets be integrated with appropriate datasets that are developed and/or maintained by the USGS.

Federal fiscal year 2015 (FY15) was the first year that funding was appropriated for this program. In FY15 funding was distributed to State Water-Resource Agencies non-competitively, in the amount of $26,000 per state. The funding was provided to allow each State to evaluate their current water-use data in relation to USGS baseline standards for each category of water user and to develop a workplan to improve it. In FY16 and subsequent years, funding is distributed under a competitive proposal process.