1 hic summer meeting, july 9, 2009 integrated water resources science and services iwrss status...

1HIC Summer Meeting, July 9, 2009

Integrated Water Resources Science and Services

IWRSS Status Update

Don Cline

Office of Climate, Water and Weather Services

National Weather Service, NOAA


IWRSS Status Update

• Two Principal Activities, February to July• Internal and External Communication, Developing Top-cover

• Consortium comments on Roadmap

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Internal Communications

• Briefing: NWS Corporate Board (May)– Included:

• past success, status and remaining priorities for AHPS,

• national imperative for advanced water information,

• critical gaps for river forecasting, broader water forecasting, and water observations

• Integrated Water Forecasting Program, three major business areas and five major objectives

• IWRSS

• Discussions: NWSEO (May and follow-on)– Dave Solano, Paula Cognitore

• Briefing: NOAA Administrator Dr. Lubchenco (June)– Provided CB briefing

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External Communications

• FEMA (Feb)– Interagency Committee on Dam Safety (ICODS)

– National Dam Safety Review Board (NDSRB)

• National Hydrologic Warning Council (May)– IWRSS included in Jack Hayes’ remarks

• USACE/USGS Joint Meeting (May)– USACE Civil Works Director Stockton, USGS Water Director Larsen

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• USACE State-of-the-States Water Resources Assessment– USACE Director Stockton

• NSF UCAR Board of Trustees (May)– Tim Kileen, NSF Asst. Director for Geosciences

• White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (May)– OSTP Director John Holdren via NSF/UCAR BOT

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• California Dept. of Water Resources (June)– IWRSS included in Rob Hartman’s remarks

• Mississippi Valley Division Fusion Team– N. Schwein to discuss further

• Advancing Demonstration Area Concepts– Delaware River Basin Commission

– Lower Colorado River Authority

– Great Lakes (Obama EPA GL Restoration), $5M proposal

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Some Initial Outcomes

• FEMA support for CHPS-CWMS interoperability via pre-staged dam-break modeling (V. Hom)

• Corporate Board – exploration of opportunities, cost and benefits of National Water Support Center (Cline, Graziano)

• NSF – Roadmap sent to OSTP, and IWRSS identified at high level for potential future NOAA-NSF collaborations

• NOAA Administrator – On her radar screen for both downtown and Silver Spring. Planning to give plenary talk on IWRSS as a principal component of collaborative federal toolbox to high-level federal and state audience at upcoming USACE national water resources meeting in August

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Some Initial Outcomes

• Great Lakes EPA proposal tabled to FY11, pending better understanding of IWRSS and interagency connections

• Delaware River Basin Commission enthusiastic about becoming a demonstration site (G. McKillop)

• Lower Colorado River Authority collaboration to propose demonstration site (T. Donaldson)

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IWRSS Status Update

• Two Principal Activities, February to July• Internal and External Communication, Developing Top-cover

• Consortium comments on Roadmap

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Synopsis: Roadmap Comments

• Governance– How would decisions be made about management, oversight, and the funding

process for accomplishing the wide range of goals of the various partners? (USGS HQ)

• Programmatic Issues– Either in this report or separate one, explain consequence of supporting

roadmap in terms of staffing, budgets, organizational changes, etc. (USACE NWD)

– Improved coordination and communication described in roadmap is critical to success, but concerned about extra staffing required within the already stretched Corps may detract from other aspects of water management. (USACE ERDC)

– The report combines a description of IWRSS at the same time it introduces complementary programs in other agencies. This creates a muddy picture of IWRSS for the reader. Consider a complete and thorough description of IWRSS, and then show how existing programs in other agencies compliment it. (USACE ERDC)

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• Involving other Agencies– How are other agencies expected to fit into IWRSS? (USACE NWD)

– What will be the process to involve them? (USACE NWD)

– Suggest involving BuRec as soon as possible (USGS HQ)

• Intra-agency Involvement– Roadmap typically refers to Districts, but several Divisions have large water

management functions and should be included as part of organizational structure that may be involved in IWRSS (USACE NWD)

– USGS Water and Geography Disciplines have identified roles for IWRSS. Recommend that Biology and Geology Disciplines also be included for their strengths in water resources, especially in coastal environments. (USGS HQ)

– Recommend the project seek briefings from all of the USACE ERDC labs to learn about capabilities throughout. ERDC invested nearly $40M over the last 5 years in the development and integration of modeling software for WR applications. ERDC labs are developing and maintaining some of the most advanced software for water resources applications. The ERDC through ITL houses extensive high-performance computing capabilities and a considerable investment has been made in enabling technologies to support water resources studies. Useful capabilities should be pulled into the IWRSS project. (USACE ERDC)

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• Workflow and Information Distribution– Report suggests that RFC-District interactions would remain same except

better coordination and more easily share data and forecasts. It would be useful if nationally generated products such as snow maps were distributed directly to USACE forecasting offices unless there are plans for RFC to edit or verify in some way. (USACE NWD)

• Modeling, Applications and Forecasting– A careful and critical consideration of the many pertinent models should be

conducted (USACE ERDC)

– Although the roadmap indicates “operational forecasting” is the core of IWRSS, it suggests that IWRSS will provide information and analyses, as well as planning-level modeling. Each of these requires a different level of computational fidelity and yield different products. The document does not discuss how IWRSS will support anything other than forecasts. (USACE ERDC)

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• Verification, Customer Satisfaction– Problem of verification (at all points) is not discussed. Related, how will

customer satisfaction be measured?

• Stakeholder Involvement– Stakeholder needs are not presented, nor are the specific products that

would satisfy those needs (USACE ERDC).

– The project would benefit from an effort to define customer needs, to describe the products that would justify those needs, and to detail what the IWRSS would intend to do to generate those products in specific terms (USACE ERDC)

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• Strategic Issues– Goal 2 (Improve River Forecasting) seems to be a subset of Goal 3 (Summit-to-

Sea modeling and forecasting). If so, why is river forecasting called out in Goal 2 over any other kind of forecasting? (USACE ERDC)

– The report says that IWRSS must seek “…large-scale budget initiatives as well as small-scale funding opportunities, being innovative and entrepreneurial about funding…”. An entrepreneurial environment may yield competition among consortium members which will make interagency collaboration more difficult. (USACE ERDC)

• National Water Support Center– With much to be defined about IWRSS, seems premature to identify one

specific location for a national support center. The requirements should be identified, then all reasonable locations should be investigated (USACE ERDC)

– Would the national center be a NOAA office, or a joint office? (USACE ERDC)

– Listing of expertise needed does not include coastal or ocean engineers or scientists (USACE ERDC)

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• Drivers– The report says that “one of the greatest factors driving the urgency of water

resources issues is climate change.” Our experience with stakeholders suggests it is a factor (among many) that may impact issues that are important in water resources today. But it is not the driving factor. For example, water availability is a serious issue in many parts of the country regardless of climate change. The driving issues are water usage and wager management. But to address the issue, we are remiss if we do not consider future effects of climate change. This is a less emphatic viewpoint that that expressed in the report. (USACE ERDC)

• Scope– In the introductory material there is the suggestion that this program would be

providing the science for resolution of issues such as Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia and other issues related to water quality in our nation’s watersheds. We feel strongly that this is outside the scope of what we have discussed with you and dilutes a very valuable concept by trying to be relevant to all issues. It is important to us to know if your intention in this plan is to move your mission into watershed and river water quality. The water quality information that may come from this program may be useful to the management of water quality issues, but we don’t envision this as a program in water quality science. (USGS HQ)

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• Future Direction of Roadmap– Document would be more effective if it was shorter and more focused on

deliverables. We believe that at this point, a discussion of the technical requirements and linkages with existing systems is not nearly as important as the presentation of a clear idea of what some of the most useful products may be. We believe that a more succinct document would be more likely to be read, increasing the value and impact. We would be happy to work with you in producing a shorter and more product-oriented document. (USGS HQ)

• Implementation Detail– Implementation detail is generally lacking, except in a few cases. Details on

summit-to-sea integration are absent, as are details on coastal/estuarine connections. (USACE ERDC)

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IWRSS Status Update

Don Cline



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IWRSS Governance Structure

Executive Oversight CouncilExecutive Oversight CouncilConsortium Executive Directors

•Provide agency oversight and programmatic authority

•Meet twice annually•Engage Advisory Committee for Water Information (ACWI)

IWRSS Project Management IWRSS Project Management TeamTeam

Interagency Chiefs, Program Leads(National and Regional)

Demonstration Area Demonstration Area TeamsTeams

Interagency HQ and Field Managers

(National and Regional)

Role

•Strategic Planning, Integration, Operations

•Engage Executive Oversight Council•Engage ACWI•Planning and decision-making body for operations, services, science and technology

•Meet frequently over next six months, then every 3 months through implementation

•Focus on specific collaboration themes and demonstration areas during design phase

•Develop tactical, technical details•Post-design: transition to ensure successful implementation and demonstrations

•Engage Project Management Team•Meet as necessary

Technical Working Technical Working GroupsGroups

Interagency HQ and Field Managers

(National and Regional)

AACCWWII

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IWRSS Working Groups

• Social Science Strategy • Needs Assessment Coordination • Interoperability and Data Synchronization • eGIS and Geo-Intelligence • Centralized Data Archive and Related Services • S&T Readiness • National-Regional Modeling • Model Forcings • Model Reanalysis• Terrestrial-Marine Linkages• Synthesis

Recommended Working Groups for Phase 2 Planning

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Roadmap Comments: USACENorthwest Division 1 of 2

• Where the report refers to the Corps’ water management functions, it usually refers to Districts. To address the fact that there is a large water management operational function at the NWD offices in Portland for the Columbia and Omaha for the Missouri (as well as some operational element at LRD, MVD, and possibly other MSC offices, the report should be modified to include Division offices as part of the organizational structure that does water management and may be involved in IWRSS.

• The overall report is mainly focused on the conceptual level. It would be helpful either in this report or a separate one that is specific to the Corps to explain what it would mean to the Corps if we were to support this roadmap in terms of staffing, budgets, organizational changes, etc.

• The report is mainly focused on USGS, NOAA and the Corps but alludes to other agencies. It would be helpful if the report went into a bit more detail on how other agencies such as Reclamation, BPA, TVA, etc. will fit into this.

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Roadmap Comments: USACENorthwest Division 2 of 2

• Wonder if USBR and NRCS were requested to participate and chose not to, or whether their omission was an oversight.

• Report mentions that USACE Water Management and RFCs would be business as usual in terms of forecasting but we would coordinate more and be able to more easily see each other’s forecasts. Since IWRSS would be responsible for creating products such as National Water Equivalent Maps of snow it would be beneficial if these were shared with those USACE forecasting offices directly unless they expect these to be routed through the RFCs for some kind of editing or verification.

• The interface between the final release decisions made by the Corps and USBR in project regulation and the transfer of this data to the forecasting offices needs to be mentioned. The reason this becomes important is just because you run a ressim or hydrologic runoff model that gives you a certain release does not mean that release rate is actually followed until water management staff approves, coordinates and issues the orders to make the change. There are often very good reasons why certain model output would not be followed no matter who is running the model. The extra communication referenced in this report as well as regional modeling teams would seem critical to success. I am concerned that the reference to using existing staff within the Corps, that is already over committed, to accomplish improved communication could result in less effective water management, especially during critical periods.

• Since the Corps has the final accountability for release from their projects, some Independent Technical Review of forecasts made by others would be prudent and required by water management staff.

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• The report captures the broad topics of importance necessary to achieve the IWRSS objectives. However, the information provided is unbalanced. A few parts of the document have implementation detail while other parts have no specifics.

• The report is titled a roadmap, but the steps to arrive at the overarching objective are missing. The report articulates repetitively what the IWRSS objectives are but only in a few cases gives details about how to accomplish a requirement that supports the objective. And in the sense of the overall goal of IWRSS, those few cases are a minor effort. Two technical topics stand out as being well thought through: 1) the integration of snow/ice in modeling and forecasts, and 2) the integration of (or communication between) CWMS and CHPS. Details about the broader summit to sea integration are absent. The connection with estuaries and coasts is devoid of detail and some comments about estuarine/coastal modeling are inaccurate.

• Associated with the previous comment is an ad hoc mention of pertinent models for summit to sea modeling and forecasting. A careful and critical consideration of the many pertinent models available should be provided. The document says the IWRSS will use new state-of-the-art high-resolution technology. But the models (as they are identified) are not capable of satisfying all of the stakeholder needs, and whether they are “new state-of-the-art technology” is questionable.

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Roadmap Comments: USACEEngineer Research and Development Center,

Vicksburg MS

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Vicksburg MS

• The document says that IWRSS will be driven by the needs of stakeholders and customers. However, the document does not present needs of stakeholders, nor the specific products that would satisfy those needs (except for a few needs that the involved agencies have expressed). The lack of needs along with the lack of detail about how summit-to-sea modeling and forecasting will create products of value cripples the justification for a $20M center staffed by 100 people. The project would benefit from an effort to define customer needs, to describe the products that would justify those needs, and to detail what the IWRSS would intend to do to generate those products in specific terms.

• Along these same lines, when so much is undefined about IWRSS, identifying a specific location to house the IWRSS Support Center seems out of place. For the reader, it would be better to identify all of the needs of the support center and then identify ALL of the reasonable locations for such a center and the degree to which each location satisfies the Center’s needs.

• We didn’t find in the report a specific statement indicating whether the Support Center would be a NOAA office. Would it be funded through a NOAA budget request? Would it be funded by multiple agencies?

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• We recommend the development team seek briefings from elements of ERDC besides CHL and CRREL to learn about the capabilities across all of the labs. The USACE through ERDC invested nearly $40M over the last 5 years in the development and integration of modeling software for water resources applications. The individual labs are developing and maintaining some of the most advanced software for water resources applications. The ERDC through ITL houses extensive high-performance computing capabilities and a considerable investment has been made in enabling technologies to support water resources studies. Useful capabilities should be pulled into the IWRSS project.

• The report suggests “operational” forecasting is the core of IWRSS. The report also suggests IWRSS will provide water resources information and analysis, as well as planning level modeling. Each of these requires a different level of computational fidelity and yield different products. The document does not discuss how IWRSS will support anything other than forecasts.

• Without descriptions of models and model integration specification, we are unsure how IWRSS will achieve accurate national high-resolution modeling for watersheds, rivers, estuaries and coasts. How will “all points” be verified for accuracy? Existing forecast models and output points used by RFCs and USACE districts have verification. The problem is not discussed. A concern for IWRSS is that an inaccurate national forecast will diminish the credibility of IWRSS products. How will “customer satisfaction be measured?

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Vicksburg MS

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• The distinction between Goal 2 and 3 is unclear. Goal 2 is about improving river forecasting and Goal 3 is about summit-to-sea modeling and forecasting. Is Goal 2 not a subset of Goal 3? If not why is river forecasting singled out over any other type of forecasting in Goal 2?

• The listing (p 20 and 82) of expertise needed for summit to sea modeling does not include coastal or ocean engineers or scientists.

• The report says that IWRSS must seek “…large-scale budget initiatives as well as small-scale funding opportunities, being innovative and entrepreneurial about funding…”. An entrepreneurial environment may yield competition among consortium members which will make interagency collaboration more difficult.

• The report rolls together a description of IWRSS at the same time it introduces programs in other agencies that seem complementary. This creates a muddy picture of IWRSS for the reader. Consider a complete and thorough description of IWRSS, and then show how existing programs in other agencies compliment it (a separate chapter or appendix).

• The report says that “one of the greatest factors driving the urgency of water resources issues is climate change.” Our experience with stakeholders suggests it is a factor (among many) that may impact issues that are important in water resources today. But it is not the driving factor. For example, water availability is a serious issue in many parts of the country regardless of climate change. The driving issues are water usage and wager management. But to address the issue, we are remiss if we do not consider future effects of climate change. This is a less emphatic viewpoint that that expressed in the report.

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Vicksburg MS

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• We agree with the concept of IWRSS and feel this is a good first step for integrating our federal efforts on water science and services. You have a good draft in that respect.

• The USGS has strength in four major scientific disciplines: Water, Geology, Geography and Biology. The IWRSS Roadmap currently recognizes some of the work that we do within the Water and Geography Disciplines, but omits expertise that our agency has to offer the water resources community in the fields of both geology and biology. With respect to the coastal environment, our Biological Resources and Geology Disciplines are renowned for their work in this area. We believe that inclusion of these capabilities could significantly strengthen the IWRSS program.

• We believe that your goal of integrated national water resources information for water supply forecasting is a laudable effort.. You have already identified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as one of the primary partners in this effort. We would also like to offer that the Dept. of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation has a major role and stake in this effort in the 17 reclamation states of the western U.S. We feel that the BuRec should be added to the IWRSS coordination process as soon as possible.

• In a number of places throughout the document you refer to the Dept. of the Interior’s “Water for America” initiative. Please be advised that this initiative is not being pursued any longer, but the efforts under it related to USGS are being incorporated into our implementation plans for “A National Water Census”, as stated in our Bureau’s Science Plan. Therefore, we recommend that you replace the references to “Water for America” in the document with “A National Water Census”, and the acronym “WFA” with “NWC”.

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Roadmap Comments: USGSHeadquarters

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• Another major comment is related to governance and funding and possibly goes beyond your plans for the scope of this document. But, we want to ask, how do you plan to address governance and funding when those ideas come into play in IWRSS? Down the road, we will undoubtedly find that resources are lacking for some of the partners to carry out their critical roles. We believe that there is a need for some kind of description of how decisions would be made about management, oversight, and the funding process for accomplishing the wide range of goals of the various partners. How do you see these issues being addressed.

• We think that the document needs to be clear about scope. Most of the body of the document is pretty clear that the deliverables are data and forecast information regarding volumes of water, flows, water levels – in other words, water quantity information. In the introductory material there is the suggestion that this program would be providing the science for resolution of issues such as Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia and other issues related to water quality in our nation’s watersheds. We feel strongly that this is outside the scope of what we have discussed with you and dilutes a very valuable concept by trying to be relevant to all issues. It is important to us to know if your intention in this plan is to move your mission into watershed and river water quality. The water quality information that may come from this program may be useful to the management of water quality issues, but we don’t envision this as a program in water quality science. We would suggest that a rewrite of the section of the Preface regarding hypoxia, manure management and Midwest flooding could help to reduce any possible confusion about the scope of the program. We have included our suggested edits of this material in the attachment below.

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Roadmap Comments: USGSHeadquarters

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• Finally, we believe the document would be much more effective if it was shorter and more focused on deliverables. We believe that at this point, a discussion of the technical requirements and linkages with existing systems is not nearly as important as the presentation of a clear idea of what some of the most useful products may be. We believe that a more succinct document would be more likely to be read, increasing the value and impact. We would be happy to work with you in producing a shorter and more product-oriented document.

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Roadmap Comments: USGSHeadquarters (AD for Water)

30April 2009

NOAA’s Integrated Water Forecast Program

The three business areas of NOAA’s Integrated Water Forecasting Program are aimed at producing a seamless suite of

water forecast information, covering:

with increased emphasis on climate-related impacts for arid and coastal watersheds.

Floods Droughts

Short-termWarnings

SeasonalOutlooks

IWFP Business Areas

Summit Sea

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Community Hydrologic Prediction System (CHPS)

NOAA Water Service Objectives

NOAA’s Role: Provide accurate and reliable water forecasts (where, when, and how much)

Provide flood inundation forecast maps for 100% of high-impact river and

coastal communities

Reduce 1-7 day river forecast errors by 50%

and quantify uncertainty

Advance Hydrologic Prediction Service

(AHPS)

Rivers and Floods

Couple modeling systems for rivers, lakes

and estuaries

Coast, Estuary, River Information Services

(CERIS)

Coasts, Lakes and Estuaries

Provide seamless suite of summit-to-sea high resolution forecasts

Integrated Water Resources Science and

Services(IWRSS)

Water Resources

Advance and integrate observing systems for

water resources

Objective 1

Objective 2

Objective 3 Objective 4

Objective 5

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NOAA River and Flood Forecast Improvement Objective (#1)

Flow forecasting after FFIP Improvements

7-Day Forecast – Flood Inundation Risk

Impact: Difference between 40’ and 41’ corresponds to large differences in area and population at risk, with a delta in potential damage costs of $90M. Local decision makers must consider this together with NWS forecast errors and mitigation costs.

This objective can pay for itself in a single event by reducing uncertainty in the high-stakes decision-making process that must consider forecasts, risks, and mitigation costs

CurrentError

Goal: 50% Reduced Error 50% Reduced

Flow Forecast

Errors

Example: Benefits of Forecast Error Reduction for Red River of the North

Purple: Inundation Risk at 40’ Crest (Estimated Damage: $240M) Blue: Inundation Risk at 41’ Crest (Estimated Damage: $330M)

Impact: 50% reduction in the 7-day flow forecast error from 26% to 13% corresponds to a 1’ difference in forecast river stage at Fargo, ND.

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NOAA SolutionImplement Advanced Forecast Technology

• WHAT: Next-generation National Water Forecast System to protect lives and enhance the national economy

• HOW: Collaboration and Innovation

1. Implement higher resolution, coupled models – required to accurately simulate the environmental conditions that control flood development and evolution (especially flow and inundation changes) over time

2. Provide increased computing power - needed to run advanced river and watershed models and narrow forecast uncertainty

3. Assure optimized use of existing and advanced observing systems

4. Leverage advanced geo-referenced tools - provide inundation maps for high-impact, low-frequency events with levee failures, dam breaks, or ice jams

5. Build a federal consortium for Integrated Water Resources Science and Services (IWRSS) – provide a framework for operational collaboration and innovation

6. Partner with the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI), sponsored by NSF and representing over 100 universities

7. Create a National Water Support Center to develop a collaborative forecast process with River Forecast Centers and partners

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IWRSS Roadmap

• Outcome of first phase of planning (Mar 09)

– NOAA, USACE, USGS

• Draft document review and comments to be completed May 09

• Second phase of planning to begin June 09

– Implement governance model

• Executive Oversight Council• Project Management Team• S&T Working Groups

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IWRSS Objective

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National Water Resources

Information System

Leap Ahead• Implement a broad and integrative system to

serve as a reliable and authoritative basis for next-generation adaptive water-related planning, preparedness and response activities from national to local levels.

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IWRSS Operational Goals

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Goal 1: Integrate services and service delivery.

• Common Operating Picture• System Interoperability

• Data Exchange and Synchronization

• Leap-ahead in Geospatial Information

• “One-stop Shopping”• COP-like experience for

stakeholders

• Transparent front for water resources information

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Goal 2: Increase accuracy and lead time of river forecasts.

Strengthened CollaborationStrengthened Collaboration

Joint Gap Analyses

Joint Gap Analyses

Goal 1BenefitsGoal 1

Benefits

Exploits fundamental systems-level benefits gained in Goal 1 within the workflow of specific forecast systems and modeling tools, e.g. CHPS and CWMS.

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Goal 3: Provide new “summit-to-sea” high-resolution water resources information and forecasts.

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Establishing and maintaining a strong participatory process for IWRSS, and building the social capital necessary for success.

Implementing sound IT engineering practices to promote the coordination, integration and facilitation of interagency activities to pursue common goals.

Developing physical and social science aspects of a well-integrated national water resources information system that is responsive to the needs of stakeholders.

IWRSS Implementation

Three Cross-cutting Themes

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IWRSS Implementation

Initial Focal Points for Collaboration and Integration

NOAANOAA

Decision Support Systems, Water Resource Management Systems

Hydromet Testbed

Coastal Services Center

USGSUSGS

USACEUSACE

Hydrology Program

River Forecast Centers

Hydraulic Engineering

CenterInstitute for

Water Resources

ERDC

Water Census

Water Science Centers

Geography Discipline

Water Discipline

IWRSS Outputs

HQ E&C

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IWRSS National Operational Water Support Center

Framework for Transcending Boundaries

Regional Demonstration

Regional Demonstration

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IWRSS Next Steps

1. Implement governance structure• Executive Oversight Council

• Project Management Team

• Science/Technical Working Groups (11 recommended)

2. Complete the roadmap – detailed planning for each science/technical area.

3. Begin dialogue on national support center4. Begin early collaboration activities within the

spiral development model.• e.g. CHPS/CWMS interoperability

5. Engage more stakeholders/partners

43USGS – USACE Joint Headquarters Meeting, May 4, 2009


IWRSS Status Update

Don Cline



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IWRSS National OperationalWater Support Center

Data Synchronization and eGIS• National support center will help develop DB interoperability to enable data exchange, central backup and

archive, and related functions.

• Centralized data synchronization enables national assimilation and verification

• Interoperability and data synchronization enable eGIS and geospatial leap-ahead.

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IWRSS Joint Operating Concept

• Community• USACE• USGS• NASA• NOAA

DATANational Weather and

Climate Forcings

• NCEP, ESRL

New Science and

Technology

IWRSSNational Water Resources Nowcasts and Forecasts

• Enhanced Use of Surface Networks• Airborne Snow and Soil Moisture• Enhanced Use of Satellite Data

Federal Water Resources Information Systems

NIDIS Drought Early Warning System

State/Local Water Resources Management Systems

Public and Private Sectors

Potential for Shared System-Level Services and Feedbacks

• New water resources Information• Analyses and Forecasts• Weather and Climate Forecast Scales• Integrated with Coastal Environment• Regional Coordination• Uncertainty Estimates

CHPS

CHPS

CHPSCWMS

Common Digital Database

National High-Resolution Modeling/Assim

Products

Regional (RFC) High-

Resolution Modeling/Assim

Coordination

DATACoordinated

Observing Systems

DATAUSACE Corps Water Management System

CHPS/CWMS Interoperability

Historical Water Budget Analyses

(USGS Water for America)

Coordinated National/Regional Workflow and Operations

District ModelingCoordination

CHPS/CWMS

Geo-Intelligence / eGIS

MODEL REANALYSIS

Groundwater Modeling

• 20-30 Years• Support calibration and bias adjustment for traditional river forecast models

• Support consistent historical water budget analyses

• Guide observing system investments

KeyKey

USGSUSGS

USACEUSACE

NOAANOAA

Common Operating Picture

Common Digital Database

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• Water is the lifeblood of this planet. All known forms of life require water to survive.

Long-term viability of municipal water supplies and critical ecosystems are at risk.

Imperatives include managing fish and wildlife habitats, maintaining quality of rivers, lakes, wetlands, groundwater and estuaries, and building community resilience to water extremes.

• Triple Threat: Scarcity and floods, climate change, and aging infrastructure

Steady population growth in the most vulnerable areas near rivers and streams High Impact

Consequently, the value of infrastructure and economic activity within the floodplain has increased

Climate change continues to augment the variability and frequency of extremes in temperature and precipitation

• Floods and droughts cause more U.S. economic losses than any other type of natural disaster.

Floods claim more than 90 lives each year, exceeding any other severe weather phenomenon

Average annual flood damages exceed $7B

Flood fighting/mitigation can cost hundreds of millions per event (e.g. Fargo ND, 2009: $200M)

• Water has always been a critical component in the success of any economic endeavor.

Virtually every business has a water imperative: manufacturing, agriculture, and energy production rely on a steady supply of water.

Rapid growth of water as a market driver is expected to continue (e.g. IBM estimates water management will soon be a $20B industry)

The National Imperative for Water Services

Protect Life and Property Support Economic Security

Protect Health and Environment Mitigate Escalating Risk

NOAA is committed to saving lives while reducing impacts to people and economic activity 46

1 hic summer meeting, july 9, 2009 integrated water resources science and services iwrss status...

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