Melissa A Harris

For most of her career, Melissa has worked on the USGS National Water Use Science Project to provide national information on water withdrawals and consumption by water-use sector. She has worked on a team that developed models to estimate water use at thermoelectric power plants in the U.S. She has led a team of scientists to update and automate the thermoelectric water-use models and provide monthly, site-specific water withdrawal and consumptive use estimates for thermoelectric plants across the U.S. She currently co-leads a national water-use team developing models to calculate industrial water-use estimates. She also currently leads a team of scientists providing water-use estimates to the Mississippi Embayment Regional Aquifer System groundwater model and developing a workflow to provide water-use data for all water availability studies in the LMG Water Science Center. She is the Senior Water Use Scientist for the LMG where she provides leadership, guidance, and scientific direction to scientists involved in water-use studies and she works with State and local cooperators to facilitate USGS expertise to answer questions about water use.