Will there be sufficient freshwater resources in the future to sustain economic growth and the quality of life? In many parts of the country, competition for water to meet the needs of homes, cities, farms, and industries is increasing. At the same time, requirements to leave water in the streams and rivers for environmental and recreational uses are expanding. Water-resources information is needed at many levels to help shed light on overall changing conditions of water scarcity, use, and competition and to help inform discussions about potential changes in water-resource policies and investment plans.
This report responds to a directive from Congress to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to “prepare a report describing the scope and magnitude of the efforts needed to provide periodic assessments of the status and trends in the availability and use of freshwater resources.” In response to this directive, the USGS describes in this report efforts needed to develop and report on indicators of the status and trends in storage volumes, flow rates, and uses of water nationwide. This would be analogous to the task of other Federal statistical programs that produce and regularly update indicator variables that describe economic, demographic, and health conditions of the Nation. The assessment also would provide regional estimates of recharge, evapotranspiration, interbasin transfers, and other components of the water cycle. These regional estimates would support analyses of water availability that are undertaken by many agencies and would benefit research quantifying variability and changes in the national and global water cycle.
The effort described would require coordination among many organizations, Federal and non-Federal agencies, and universities to ensure that the information produced can be aggregated with other types of water-availability and socioeconomic information. The efforts identified concerning flows, storages, and uses of water would be used with water-quality information from existing programs to provide a more complete national picture of the quantity and quality aspects of water availability. To maximize the utility of the information, the design and development of these efforts should be coordinated through the Federal Advisory Committee on Water Information.
The assessment would use existing data collected by the USGS and by others to create the indicator variables. Data gaps identified by the program would be coordinated with improvements in data-collection networks for surface water and ground water defined by USGS plans for the National Streamflow Information Program and the Ground-Water Resources Program, and as part of the Cooperative Water Program. Water-use estimation by the program would be strengthened from existing efforts along the lines suggested by the National Research Council.
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