The USGS Water-Use Data and Research (WUDR) program is pleased to announce the recipients of FY18 cooperative agreements. Awards were made to agencies in 7 States, for a total of $590,000 in funding.
| Department Name | Project Title | Project Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Arkansas Natural Resources Commission | Water Use Data Entry, Storage, and Retrieval Improvements to the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission's Water Use Database with Geographic Information Systems Integration | This project will build the hardware, software, World Wide Web, and workflow system to enable migration of the Arkansas Water Use Database from the USGS Arkansas Water Science Center to the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission and improve the collection process and quality assurance of water data, retrieval, and transfer of data to USGS. ARNC will improve the collection and dissemination of water use data through a searchable database with all pertinent information pertaining to the geographical location of water withdrawals. Arkansas currently has tier 1 abilities with some tier two levels with the intent to improve all tiers to level 2. Data will be received electronically directly into the database with data reported on paper being scanned into the system. This will then be connected to ANRC's ArcGIS system through a Arkansas Water Use Database Entry, Storage, and Retrieval Improvements FY2018 FY18 WUDR Program Application purchased module. This will allow ANRC to supply to the public and other agencies a geographical representation of all our agency's current water use information. |
| Idaho Department of Water Resources | 2018 Idaho Water Use Data and Research - Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) Water Use Field Tools for Surface Water and Irrigated Land Delineation from Imagery | This project aims to improve the accuracy and collection of water measurement data by developing a standardized field tool for surface water collection for water masters in Idaho and serving the data to the public. The majority of water use in Idaho is for irrigation, and therefore water masters will primarily inventory and measure water at diversions used for irrigation. However, since some of the water is used for other purposes including municipal, recreation and fish propagation, the proposed work could also benefit other water use categories. This work will improve the quality and increase the number of measurements of water use data collected by increasing efficiency and standardization. This project will also create a methodology for using Sentinel Imagery Normalized Difference Vegetation Index to determine irrigation status using a three-class classification (irrigated, non-irrigated, semi-irrigated). Determining irrigated land acres is an essential dataset for determining water budget, one of many input parameters used in modelling scenarios that are being developed for Idaho aquifers and planning regions. The intent is to develop a procedure that is portable between differing geographic agricultural areas. |
| Maine Geological Survey | Improvements to Domestic Water Use Data Collection Methods and Population Estimates for Maine by the Maine Geological Survey | Because most users are not required to record or report their own usage, significant gaps remain in the picture of water use in this state. This project aims to improve data collection and estimation in the categories of Public Supply and Self-Supplied Domestic because domestic water use. This project will involve developing an improved, semi-automated process for compiling and quality controlling data that are currently reported by public water utilities to the Maine Public Utilities Commission. This project will also study per capita coefficients for domestic water users, using detailed customer meter data provided by selected public water utilities. The project will also develop improved estimates of populations that are served by public water systems versus those that are self-supplied. This project will collect water use data from all sixteen counties of Maine, and will use information about populations and water use from the years 2007 through 2018. Estimates of aggregate water use volumes will be made for all Maine counties for the year 2018, and methods developed during the project will be used in future years beyond the project end date. |
| Missouri Department of Natural Resources: Missouri Geological Survey (MGS) | Identifying golf course irrigated acres, updating online water use reporting system, updating a water plan, determination of return water from electric generation, and increasing livestock water use reporting in Missouri | The Missouri Department of Natural Resources' Missouri Geological Survey proposes tasks to address three main priorities and some additional priorities. They will address unreported acres of cropland by contacting golf courses to obtain the number of acres irrigated and enter this into the Major Water Users database. They also propose to develop quality checks in our online reporting system to catch any water use reporting that is greater than the pump capacity. This effort will reduce the number of instances where inaccurate data is reported. The third main priority is to collaborate with the Information Technology department to develop tools associated with the online reporting system to assist irrigation major water users in estimating water usage. As a lesser priority, the Missouri Geological Survey also proposes to contact confined animal feeding operations to determine if they are a major water user, what their water source is, and what their annual water usage is. They also plan to contact power-generation facilities to verify amount of water consumed versus returned to the water system as well as to verity the quantity used and source of the water. The development of a state water plan will contribute to this workplan by estimating water needs of water use sectors and thus aid in the estimation of water use in the state. |
| New Mexico Office of the State Engineer: Water Use and Conservation Bureau | New Mexico Office of the State Engineer — Water Use and Conservation Bureau Public Water Supply Geospatial Data and Livestock Water Use Methodology Project to support the New Mexico Water Use by Categories Report. | This project that will improve the quality of water use data collected by creating geospatial data for the Public Water Supply use category and refine the methodology used in the development of livestock water use data. It will improve the collection and compilation of public water system use data by developing an ESRI-based geodatabase that contains geospatial data of non-transient PWS locations, their associated service areas, and the locations of their supply sources. This will be a critical tool for analyzing populations served by the systems. The proposed work will also review past assumptions about the location of livestock operations, research available current information related to livestock production, and develop methods to better correlate livestock production with geospatial information by identifying geospatial locations of major individual facilities as well as dispersed livestock. The work conducted under this project will not only serve the State's goal of improving livestock water use data development but will also serve the USGS goal of improving the data that is transferred to the USGS in the cooperative effort to produce the USGS's Estimated Use of Water in the United States. The proposed work will allow WUCB to better characterize the populations served by location, better estimate the populations served, provide a necessary step to identifying the water source and water type, provide the ability to identify interbasin transfers, and enable the identification of public water system use by Hydrologic Unit Code 8. The proposed work intends to improve data collection for statewide water use for PWSs and livestock, and the work is expected to take up to 24 months. |
| North Dakota State Water Commission | Improving Data and Understanding of Public Water Supply in North Dakota through Municipal and Industrial Water-Use Information to Support the North Dakota State Water Commission | The primary goal of this project is to improve understanding of municipal and industrial water-use across the state of North Dakota. A secondary focus of the project is to begin to comprehend the role of rural water districts water-use in the state. In North Dakota there has been little effort to collect and disaggregate municipal water quantity use data beyond identifying problems in municipalities. Past projects were used to create a work plan of North Dakota priorities and assess municipalities across the state to help determine per capita coefficients of water-use and what type of water-use might constitute normal commerce in cities of different sizes. This project will improve water-use data for irrigation, public supply or industrial use categories, improve the collection process and transfer of water use data to USGS and other data users, and develop methods and/or coefficients to improve water-use estimates for categories of use. Information from the project will increase the tier level of many categories by creating further understanding and sub-categories of water-use. Eventually, they will apply for a future WUDR funding opportunity to use knowledge gained from the Southwest Water Authority to fully explore water-use in the Bakken oil region. |
| Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection | Improve Collection of Water Use Information by Development of Online Forms to Support the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Water Use Data Program | The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's water use data program currently receives information about water use sources through submission of a paper registration form. Paper form submissions are also used for termination and revision of registered sources. To improve the quality of registration and to encourage registration, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection proposes to convert existing paper forms to online forms for electronic submission. |
Below are related information links for the Water-Use Data and Research Program.
Water-Use Data and Research (WUDR) program
The USGS Water-Use Data and Research (WUDR) program provides 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.
Water-Use Data and Research program: Proposals and awards
Water-Use Data and Research (WUDR) financial assistance is awarded in a competitive process each Federal Fiscal Year. The funding cycle begins with the WUDR Program Announcement being made available on Grants.gov. State water resources agencies can then prepare proposals for improving their water-use data under the priorities described in an approved workplan. All submitted proposals are reviewed...
Below are related information links for the Water-Use Data and Research Program.
Water-Use Data and Research (WUDR) program
The USGS Water-Use Data and Research (WUDR) program provides 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.
Water-Use Data and Research program: Proposals and awards
Water-Use Data and Research (WUDR) financial assistance is awarded in a competitive process each Federal Fiscal Year. The funding cycle begins with the WUDR Program Announcement being made available on Grants.gov. State water resources agencies can then prepare proposals for improving their water-use data under the priorities described in an approved workplan. All submitted proposals are reviewed...