National Water Census: Focus Area Studies
Science Center Objects
Focus Area Studies are stakeholder-driven assessments of water availability in river basins with known or potential conflict. They contribute toward ongoing assessments of water availability in large watersheds, provide opportunities to test and improve approaches to water availability assessment, and inform and ground truth the National Water Census with local information. Common to each of the three ongoing Focus Area Studies is the focus on key water-budget components and the integration of assessment tools, including computer models, to better understand the linkages among budget components—surface water and groundwater—and their relation to the ecosystems they support.
Water Availability and Use Science Program: National Water Census
The USGS National Water Census (NWC) is designed to systematically provide information that will allow resource managers to assess the supply, use, and availability of the Nation’s water. The goal of the NWC is to provide nationally-consistent base layers of well-documented data that account for water availability and use nationally.
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Date published: March 2, 2019Status: ActiveNational Water Census: Streamflow
The USGS National Water Census complements the USGS national network of more than 8,000 streamgages by estimating streamflow for ungaged locations throughout the country, by analyzing streamflow records, and by providing tools for analysis of streamgage data to end users. The USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) makes the actual...
Attribution: Water Resources -
Date published: March 2, 2019Status: ActiveNational Water Census: Groundwater
The National Water Census (NWC) is leveraging a long history of groundwater studies and is accelerating ongoing regional studies to assess the Nation's groundwater reserves, studies that formerly were conducted under the USGS Groundwater Resources Program. The NWC is also increasing the ability to integrate groundwater and surface-water analyses into watershed-level assessments of water...
Attribution: Water Resources -
Date published: March 2, 2019Status: ActiveNational Water Census: Water Use
Through the National Water Census, USGS will provide more comprehensive reporting of national information on withdrawal, conveyance, consumptive use, and return flow by water-use category. Water-use data enables water managers to plan more strategically and enables the analysis of trends of over time. It is also vital to water-availability studies such as watershed and groundwater models.
Attribution: Water Resources, Water Resources Research Act Program -
Date published: March 2, 2019Status: ActiveNational Water Census: Environmental Flows
Environmental water studies refer to understanding the quantity, timing, and quality of water flows, as well as the water levels and storage required to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems and the human livelihoods that depend on these ecosystems. The concept of ‘environmental flows’ in stream ecology are the basis of these studies, but they go beyond the understanding of surface flows...
Attribution: Water Resources -
Date published: March 2, 2019Status: ActiveNational Water Census: Evapotranspiration
No water budget would be complete without accounting for evaporation and related processes, such as transpiration and sublimation. Evapotranspiration, or "ET," refers to the combined flux of plant transpiration and evaporation from the adjacent soil. It is especially important for understanding water used by irrigated crops, and is related to crop productivity. Consumptive water use for...
Attribution: Water Resources