National Water Availability Assessment Report
The National Water Availability Assessment reports provide synthesis and interpretation of water availability in the past, present, and future.
Other National Water Availability Assessment Products
The USGS National Water Availability Assessment consists of reports, which provide a scientific summary and interpretation of water quantity, quality and use, and the data companion, which delivers model-based estimates of water supply and demand.
The National Water Availability Assessment reports will provide the synthesis and interpretation of water availability in the past, present, and future. These assessments are modeled in part after the previous national assessments conducted by the Water Resources Council in the 1960s and 1970s. They build on more recent reporting by the USGS on national water use and water quality conducted through the USGS Water Resources Mission Area's Water Availability and Use Program and the former National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program. These new assessments include more model predictions, allowing us to fill in spatial and temporal gaps in our monitoring records; evaluate water quantity, quality, and use at the same time; and make forecasts into the future.
The National Water Availability Assessment reports provide insights into regional and topical aspects of water availability. For example, the National Water Availability Assessment reports may use results from the Regional Water Availability Assessments to better understand the behavior of individual water-availability components and help explain broader regional and national patterns. The National Water Availability Assessment reports may also consider topical issues that cut across multiple components of water availability, such as wildfire and its effects on water quantity, quality, and use.
Because of the large scope of the National Water Availability Assessment reports, they will be produced on a five-year cycle to allow enough time for generation of new information, synthesis, interpretation, review, and publication. Additional products that are smaller in scope, like data visualizations, short topical summaries, and journal articles, will be released in the years between the national assessments.