Water Marketing Activities within the Bureau of Reclamation
U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation, December 2016
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation report “Water Marketing Activities within the Bureau of Reclamation,” presents examples of different water transfers and other water transactions involving Reclamation and draws general observations from these examples about transactions, focusing on Reclamation’s role. Finally, it provides a set of recommendations showing Reclamation’s intent to support future water market development. The report is of interest as a source of background information on water transactions of various sizes and through various institutional arrangements throughout the West. Recognizing the benefits of water transactions, it captures the plethora of locally-led innovations to increase flexibility in the use of water resources and/or facilities so as to achieve a broad range of water resource goals. Observations highlight needs to lower transactions costs, track transactions involving Reclamation, and use existing mechanisms to facilitate establishment of water markets. Recommendations focus on opportunities to address and remedy barriers to water transfers through internal evaluation and adjustments.
Final EPA/USGS Technical Report: Protecting Aquatic Life from Effects of Hydrologic Alteration
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Geological Survey, December 2016
This report, “Protecting Aquatic Life from Effects of Hydrologic Alteration,” released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in December 2016, discusses how hydrologic alteration can contribute to impairment of the water bodies upon which aquatic life depends. This Final EPA-USGS Technical Report presents a review of the literature on natural flow systems and a description of the potential effects of flow alteration on aquatic life. Natural flow regimes have multiple components including flow magnitude, timing, duration, frequency, and rate of change that occur in characteristic patterns. Altering the pattern can degrade the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of streams and rivers. Protecting aquatic life involves keeping the flow regime within its typical range of variation. The report goes on to provides examples of narrative criteria that some states have developed for supporting natural flow and healthy aquatic biota. In a final section, it offers a voluntary framework for states, tribes, and territories to use in quantifying the flow regime components that would protect aquatic life. The eight steps proposed in the framework begin with identifying goals and proceed through information collection and model development. Without prescribing any particular analytical approach, the steps emphasize the information and processes that are useful in evaluating relations between flow and aquatic life and developing numeric and narrative flow targets. The report also notes the amplifying effects of climate trends on altered stream flow and consequently aquatic life.
To access the report go to www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-12/documents/final-aquatic-life-hydrologic-alteration-report.pdf
A Fact Sheet on the report can be found at www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-12/documents/final-aquatic-life-hydrologic-alteration-factsheet.pdf
Global Surface Water Explorer
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Sustainable Resources, 2016
The Global Surface Water Explorer provides map visualizations showing change in rivers, lakes, and other surface water over the past 32 years and also provides access to the data used to produce the visualizations. Researchers from European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Sustainable Resources led an international team to develop the Explorer. An article in the journal Nature describes the two-year project that produced the tool and assessed changes in surface water at a global scale. The data set used 1,823 terabytes of processed data from the Landsat 5, 7 and 8 acquired between 16 March 1984 and 10 October 2015, the entire archive, provided by the USGS and NASA. Each pixel of Landsat data was classified as open water, land, or a non-valid observation, by an expert system run in Google Earth Engine. The expert system employed techniques for big data exploration and information extraction. Google’s Earth Engine, a computational infrastructure optimized for parallel processing of geospatial data, used 10,000 computers to complete the processing, which on one computer would have taken more than 1,000 years, in around 45 days.
On the Explorer web site, maps show water occurrence, change intensity, seasonality, annual recurrence, and transition from first to last year. These measures can be viewed in a choice of formats including time-lapse imagery.
The Global Surface Water Explorer can be found at https:// global-surface-water.appspot.com/.
The Nature article is accessible at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7633/full/nature20584.html.
Looking Forward: Priorities for Managing Freshwater Resources in a Changing Climate
Water Resources and Climate Change Workgroup, November 2016
The November 2016 report, titled “Looking Forward: Priorities for Managing Freshwater Resources in a Changing Climate,” updates the “National Action Plan: Priorities for Managing Freshwater Resources in a Changing Climate,” which was published in 2011 and documented the work of the federal interagency Water Resources and Climate Change Workgroup. Rather than inventory the activities being undertaken throughout the federal government, this report addresses the highest priority actions planned by Workgroup member agencies for the next few years. Three thematic areas are covered: data and research, planning and decision support, and training and outreach. The Workgroup recognized the need for observational networks and the data they provide for understanding emerging climate change trends and applying that understanding to water resource management. Additionally, research is needed to increase water use efficiencies in all water using sectors. Collaboration and coordination among providers and users of decision support guidance is required to develop and apply new information and tools to decisions. To this end, federal agencies will be focusing on promoting and expanding existing mechanisms for outreach and training, including the Water Resources Research Institutes.