INVITED Use of Hydrologic Monitoring and Predictions to Support Water Management: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Applications in Support of Hourly to Weekly River Regulation

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service are working together to document user needs for improved climate, weather and hydrologic information supporting short-term water management decisions (www.ccawwg.us). “Short-term” includes a collection of by operational outlooks having look-ahead ranging from days to seasons (generally <1 year, but sometimes longer). This continuum represents a broad mix of management objectives and decision processes, including flood risk reduction during coming hours to days, conserving snowmelt over coming days to weeks, and anticipating water supply availability for multiple beneficial uses over coming months to seasons. To set the stage for needs discussion, USACE and Reclamation conducted a use and needs assessment among internal operations groups during Spring 2011. The purpose was to ask them about a menu of Federal climate, weather and hydrologic information products made available to the water management community, whether these products are accessed, which decision-situations they inform, and to what degree they're decision-influential. Results are summarized in the documentation effort accessed at the link above. This presentation focuses on USACE responses and specifically to management situations that involve hourly to daily river regulation (i.e. flood management, navigation requirements, etc…). This presentation is complemented by another in this session (L. Brekke, presenting on Reclamation responses related to longer-term river water management scheduling decisions). Presentation will summarize responses and offer insights on where products are accessed, applied, and ultimately found to be decision-influential. It will also highlight feedback pointing toward needs in monitoring, forecast improvement, understanding product utility in water management, and information enterprise.