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Working with the U.S. Geological Survey: Groundwater Information and Partnership Opportunities

By William F. Horak and Gregory V. Steele

Published in "River Voices", November, 2005: volume 15, numbers 3 & 4, pages 10-15.

Link to the Published Article on the River Network web site.

This article was published in “River Voices” (Volume 15, Number 3 & 4, 2005, p. 10-15), a journal of the River Network.  River Network is a national, nonprofit organization whose mission is to help people understand, protect, and restore rivers and their watersheds.  The blue-colored words or phrases in this online version of the article are live links to relevant USGS web pages.

Working with the U.S. Geological Survey

Ground-Water Information and Partnership Opportunities

by W.F. Horak¹ and G.V. Steele²

¹Associate Regional Hydrologist, Central Region, USGS

²Hydrologist, USGS Nebraska Water Science Center

Overview of USGS Organization and Water Programs

 The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is a multi-disciplinary science organization that focuses on biology, geology, geography, and water.  It is dedicated to the timely, relevant, and impartial study of the landscape, our natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten us.  The 9,000 scientists, technicians, and support staff of the USGS are located in nearly 400 offices in every State and in several foreign countries.  The USGS leverages its resources and expertise in partnership with more than 2,000 agencies of Federal, State, local, and Tribal governments; the academic community; non-governmental organizations; and the private sector.  Although water-related work is conducted in offices throughout the USGS, the focus of this article will be the organization, activities, products, and partnership opportunities associated with the Water Resources Discipline (WRD).   Descriptions of activities and products are tailored primarily to the topic of ground water.

The main operating units of the WRD are the Water Science Centers (WSCs), each with program responsibilities in its host State.  Because nearly every WSC has multiple offices, WRD staff are located in about 180 cities throughout the U.S.   The WRD receives about one half of its funding from Congressional appropriations for the USGS’s water-resources programs and the other half through reimbursable agreements with other governmental organizations.  The reimbursable program allows the WRD to formally partner with those organizations to accomplish USGS mission-relevant work that contributes directly to the science-information needs of the partner organizations. The WSCs receive USGS program funding and direction from headquarters. Guidance for meeting the science goals and quality-assurance requirements of the WRD is provided by the technical Offices of Ground Water, Surface Water, and Water Quality.  The WRD Regional Offices also provide technical support for the WSCs through the Regional Specialists for Ground Water, Surface Water, Water Quality, and Reports.   Additional USGS national capabilities that help the WSCs with their program responsibilities include the National Research Program, the National Water Quality Laboratory in Denver , and the Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi .

 The primary activities of a WSC include long-term data collection, assessments of water resources, topical or problem-focused       investigations, and applied research.  In fiscal year 2005, for example, the WSCs collected data on water quantity and quality at about 10,000 surface-water sites and more than 16,000 ground-water sites and were engaged in over 700 investigative studies of water resources.   Products from WSC activities include data, formal reports, technical and general-purpose information posted on web sites, and enhanced scientific expertise that regularly is called upon by others to help make water-management decisions. 

Products and Information Available from USGS

Data   

The USGS has been collecting water-resources data for more than  125 years.  Each year, every WSC produces a report, Water Resources Data, [State], Water Year [YYYY], that is a compilation of the quality-assured and “approved final” data collected by the WSCs on the quantity and quality of water resources in each State.  For recent years, these annual data reports are available online.  The USGS also maintains a nationally distributed network of computers and file servers to store, retrieve, and permanently archive water data (National Water Information System or NWIS).  The NWIS includes data collected at more than 1.5 million sites throughout the U.S.   Of those, nearly 1.4 million are ground-water sites--for which 8 million water-level measurements and nearly a million water-quality analyses are stored.  The majority of the data in the NWIS now are available for public viewing and retrieval through an internet interface called NWISWeb.  Descriptive site information are available for all data.  For ground-water sites, the database includes information such as latitude/longitude, well depth, altitude of land surface, aquifer name, and the begin date and end date for the types of data available (water levels and water-quality analyses, for example).  The actual data may be retrieved in various graphical and tabular formats.

The USGS annually monitors ground-water levels in thousands of wells in the U.S.   These data are collected and stored as either discrete measurements or as continuous record.  Data from more than 800 of the continuous-record sites are relayed electronically and are available online as real-time ground-water data.  Nearly every WSC operates at least a few real-time ground-water sites.  The USGS Ground-Water Climate Response Network has been established to present data that can be used to monitor the effects of droughts and other climate variability on ground-water levels in the U.S.   This web site serves not only real-time water-level plots, but also statistical summaries of the water-level data for the period of record.  Selected USGS WSC web sites also serve derivatives of basic ground-water-level data.  The Pennsylvania WSC, for example, serves ground-water-level 30-day duration graphs for more than 60 observation wells.

Reports

Comprehensive information is available online about all USGS publication products and, specifically, about water-resources reports. Most recent USGS water-resources publications are available online and older reports are being scanned to facilitate online distribution.  The USGS online Publications Warehouse currently lists bibliographic citations to about 70,000 report and map products and provides online access to the full content of many of the products.  The Publications Warehouse may be searched by subject, author, date, and USGS publication series.    

The USGS library, the largest library for earth sciences in the world, offers another option for access to USGS publications.  Besides the four libraries of the central library system, the USGS has many specialized libraries located in science centers across the Nation. The public is welcome to visit the USGS libraries and use the collections on the premises or request items owned by the libraries on interlibrary loan.  The online catalogue includes all USGS reports published since 1975, as well as the majority of reports dating back to 1879.   

Information Available from the USGS Office of Ground Water

The USGS Water Discipline’s Office of Ground Water (OGW) web pages include many informational resources that could be helpful to watershed organizations.  The OGW web site includes a link to a page referencing over 70 “Selected USGS Ground Water Publications”, including introductory primers on Ground Water, Aquifer Basics, Ground Water and the Rural Homeowner, and The Water Cycle.  It references many online USGS Circulars that provide in-depth coverage of various ground-water topics, such as  The Importance of Long-Term Water-Level Data, Sustainability of Ground-Water Resources, Ground Water and Surface Water—A Single Resource, and The Role of Science in Managing Ground-Water Resources.   The page includes a web link to some of the USGS’s primary training documents, USGS Techniques of Water-Resources Investigations Reports (TWRI).  The TWRI series includes chapters on Aquifer-test design, Introduction to ground-water hydraulics, and several chapters on instruments for measurement of water levels (A1, A3) and ground-water modeling techniques (see Book 6: Section A; Chapters A1-A7).  The OGW page ”Selected … Publications” also provides links to online USGS publications dealing with documentation of ground-water models, ground-water data-collection protocols and procedures, and water use.  The document, A Quality-Assurance Plan for District Ground-Water Activities of the U.S. Geological Survey, is a plan that is implemented in every WSC to help ensure that all scientific work done by or for the WRD is conducted in accordance with a quality-assurance program.  The OGW site links to an online version of the Ground Water Atlas of the United States, an extensive presentation of text and illustrations on the nation’s ground-water resources.  Finally, the OGW site identifies “Selected Ground Water Issues” and provides references to publications and other USGS web sites with detailed information relevant to each “Issue” (examples are “Ground-Water and Surface-Water Interactions” and “Ground-Water Networks”).

Information Available at the Water Science Centers

The best source of USGS information specific to the ground-water resources in a given State or watershed is the USGS WSC.  Each WSC maintains a web site that includes information about the data-collection and investigative project activities of the WSC and references to data and interpretive reports produced by the WSC.  Virtually all such reports published in recent years are available online.  Some of the WSCs also maintain special-purpose data bases of hydrologic and water-quality information in addition to NWIS, but serve the information online (examples:  Blue River Watershed, CO and High Plains Aquifer).

Although most of this article relates to USGS products and information that are available electronically, individuals and organizations having water interests and responsibilities always are encouraged to talk personally with the staff of the WSCs.  The WSC staff need and seek opportunities to learn about the water-information needs of others within the State water community, share insight about current USGS water-resources activities and the vision for future science activities, and discuss with other water-related organizations shared science interests that potentially could lead to productive partnerships.  The WSC Director always is a good point of contact for initiating discussions with a WSC.  

Partnership Opportunities and the Cooperative Water Program

The USGS conducts water-resources activities through formal partnerships with watershed organizations throughout the country.  Funding of those activities is made possible through the WRD’s Cooperative Water Program (CWP: Fact Sheet, Cooperators listing).  By law, these partnerships must be with State, local, or tribal governmental entities.  The CWP allows the USGS to provide up to one-half the cost of a data-collection activity or interpretive study (or both) conducted by the USGS to address the informational needs of the cooperator and the CWP priorities issued annually by the USGS. The CWP now funds about 65 percent of the WRD’s long-term data-collection activities and more than half of the WRD’s interpretive studies (see selected Recent Accomplishments).  In situations where the cooperating organization has the technical capacity and interest to do some part of the project activity, their project contributions may lessen the overall cost of the work.  If that activity involves data collection, the USGS and cooperative participants normally must develop and implement data-quality measures (see, for example, Greve, 2002) to help ensure the overall integrity of the data produced.  Direct participation of cooperator personnel in a USGS water-resources project, as with any WRD activity, would involve quality assurance provided through various means.  Examples include technical training; blind-sample testing; laboratory certification; reviews of proposals, project work plans, and reports; and use of quality-assurance plans.  Some of the USGS technical training courses, offered both at the USGS National Training Center and in USGS WSCs are open, on a space-available basis, to employees of USGS formal cooperator organizations. 

 Case History of a Formal Partnership Between a Watershed Organization and the USGS       

 In 1969, the Nebraska legislature created a system of 23 Natural Resource Districts (NRDs), based on the boundaries of river basins, to deal with natural resources issues in each district.  This unique system of locally-controlled, tax-funded, watershed-based conservation organizations are charged with 12 areas of responsibility including, but not limited to, the management of ground water and surface water.  Accordingly, each NRD is required by the State to have a plan to protect ground water from overuse and pollution.

The North Platte NRD, one of three NRDs in the western Nebraska panhandle, manages the water-resources associated with about three million acres of the North Platte River Basin and its tributaries.  Important concerns of the North Platte NRD include the availability of ground-water supplies to producers and municipalities and the development of options for managing impairments to ground-water quality due to elevated concentrations of nitrates.   To help address some of these concerns, the North Platte NRD and the USGS Nebraska Water Science Center have worked cooperatively since 1990 on many data-collection efforts and interpretive studies having varying purposes, scopes, and funding levels.

A ground-water-quality reconnaissance study was done in 1990-91 to help the North Platte NRD establish a base-line for water-quality conditions in their District. Since then, several additional cooperative studies have been completed, including three large-scale, multi-year studies during the mid-1990s.  These three studies used (1) radiological isotopes and ground-water age-dating techniques to identify sources of uranium and the effects of the interaction of surface water in the North Platte River and seasonal irrigation canals with the shallow alluvial aquifers (figure 1) near the Wyoming-Nebraska state line, (2) surface-geophysical techniques to identify bedrock surfaces and to delineate areas of canal leakage (an important source of good-quality ground-water recharge for much of the northwestern part of the North Platte NRD), or (3) nitrogen isotopes to identify the possible source of large nitrate concentrations in ground water.  In addition, a regional ground-water flow model of western Nebraska is being developed by the USGS, in cooperation with the North Platte NRD, to simulate the effects of using canals and laterals in the North Platte NRD to enhance ground-water recharge.  

Figure 1 -- Influence of leakage from canals on ground-water levels in the Dutch Flats area, North Platte Natural Resources District

Along with the interpretive projects, an integral part of the cooperative work has been monitoring the quantity and availability of ground water in the North Platte NRD.  In the mid-1990s, the USGS and North Platte NRD began establishing a network of ground-water observation wells, now including 15 real-time sites in Banner, Garden, Morrill, Scotts Bluff, and southern Sioux Counties .   In addition, the USGS and the North Platte NRD are using hand-held computer technology, including bar coding, to facilitate the rapid collection and storage of ground-water data from many other monitoring wells.

Several of the cooperative studies and data-collection activities have  involved training of NRD personnel both on-the-job and in the class room (at the USGS National Training Center in Denver , Colorado ).  This training includes coverage of quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) processes established to ensure consistency of data-collection efforts. Training and oversight of field operations by USGS personnel have enabled North Platte NRD personnel to collect ground-water level data without USGS personnel on-site or to assist USGS personnel in collection of ground-water quality samples using USGS protocols.    Additional QA and QC efforts involve USGS personnel independently visiting some North Platte NRD ground-water recorder wells on a quarterly basis to inspect the equipment and evaluate the data record.  

The findings of the cooperative studies have been published in a series of USGS reports, scientific journal articles, and abstracts authored by the USGS and North Platte NRD personnel.  All data, including the water-quality data collected during the studies and the basic ground-water data collected by North Platte NRD personnel, are stored in the NWIS.

The cooperative relationship between the USGS and the North Platte NRD has demonstrated the benefits of pooling Federal and local resources to achieve water-management objectives.   By sharing responsibilities for financing and conducting ground-water data collection and studies activities, the two agencies have amassed more technical information and understanding than otherwise would have been possible.  The partnership has resulted in an impressive array of USGS products (data and interpretive reports) and the North Platte NRD has been an active participant in collecting ground-water quantity and quality data that are technically sound and defensible.