Cooperative Projects
USGS Cooperative Matching Funds (CMF) support joint projects with our State, regional, tribal, and local partners to provide reliable, impartial, and timely information needed by these partners to understand and manage the Nation's water resources.
CMF is combined with funds from over 1,500 partners for projects that monitor and assess water resources in every state, protectorate, and territory of the U.S. The flexibility of CMF allows USGS and its partners to respond to significant or emerging water issues in a timely manner; sometimes this results in local issues being raised to the regional or national level. Because consistent USGS national protocols are used to monitor and assess water resources, water data are directly comparable at the regional and national scale and water issues in a specific location, watershed, or aquifer can be compared to those in other geographic regions and across different time periods. Such comparisons allow for large-scale synthesis and problem-solving across state lines, in regional watersheds or aquifers, and nationally. CMF are also used to develop innovative approaches for monitoring, modeling, managing, and delivering water data and science to our partners, while also providing information that protects human lives and property, promotes healthy ecosystems, and supports sustainable economic development.
The Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program (GWSIP) is one of four budget programs in the USGS Water Mission Area. GWSIP primarily funds the USGS national streamflow and groundwater networks, and increasingly funds integrated data collection, including precipitation, temperature, and other parameters to increase the understanding of the hydrologic cycle. In GWSIP, CMF provide funds to work with over 1,200 USGS Partners in the operation of these networks. Well over half of the funding for the USGS National Streamflow Network -- a network of more than 8,100 streamgages across the Nation that provides a continuous source of streamflow information used by governmental organizations, private industries, and the public for decision making related to protection of life and property from water-related hazards -- comes from the USGS Partners! The USGS also partners to fund the groundwater networks across the nation, which can vary from a local set of groundwater wells, to a statewide network. Scientific initiatives such as Flood Inundation Mapping (FIM) began as a series of individual projects with Partners that developed into a national initiative using GWSIP funds to support the USGS FIM Web Page, as well as, additional FIM projects to enhance the science. GWSIP CMF is also sometimes used to support additional data collection and interpretative science during droughts and floods, as well as, post-flood evaluations.
