USGS Streamflow Monitoring in Georgia

USGS Streamflow Monitoring in Georgia

NIDIS Early Warning System Development Workshop

May 18-19, 2010Callaway Gardens, GA

Enhance our ability to collect and deliver RT info from earth-observation networks

With our partners, assess the vulnerability of cities and ecosystems

Ensure science is effectively applied to reduce losses

Natural Hazards—one of the strategic directions for USGS

Facing Tomorrow’s Challenges, USGS Science in the Decade 2007—2017, Circular 1309

USGS National Monitoring Network

Real-Time Data Networks:• 9,329 surface-water stations

• 386 lake & reservoir stations

• 3,635 raingage stations

• 1,353 groundwater wells

• 1,742 continuous water-quality

Effort underway to upgrade entire network to hourly transmissions

USGS in Georgia

• 316 surface-water stations

• 251 have raingages

• 51 have continuous water-quality

• 100% transmit hourly

• All have emergency random transmissions

USGS Stream Gage Installation

Housing with raingage

Pressure orifice line buried

Outside gage (staff)

Reasons for monitoring streamflow Flood control Drought monitoring State Water Planning Resolving disputes Water supplies Maintaining flows for assimilative capacity Hydro-electric power Navigation Safe bridge and roadway design Recreation and tourism Long-term climate analyses Modeling

Allatoona Dam

USGS Hazards Products

USGS Hazards Products—NHSS

• Interactive map to see all hazards currently happening

• Different colors for different types of events

• Click on event and popup window gives more details

• All real-time data collected by USGS

• All historical data• All daily, monthly, annual

statistics• All field measurements• All peak flows

National Water Information System— NWISWeb

Instantaneous Data Archive

WaterWatch—Drought Watch

Streamail

Water data on request to your cell phone/email.

Send email to [email protected] and in the subject line put the USGS station number, like “02336300”

Get a reply:The latest river stage and streamflow values you requested from StreaMail. Site: 02336300

Station name: PEACHTREE CREEK AT ATLANTA, GADate: 09/30/2009Time: 09:00:00Stage: 2.95 feetStreamflow: 90 cubic feet per second (cfs)

Link to charts for 02336300:Stage: http://waterwatch.usgs.gov/wwapps/zchart.php?i=nwis2&&vt=uv&&cd=00065&site_no=02336300

Streamflow: http://waterwatch.usgs.gov/wwapps/zchart.php?i=nwis2&&vt=uv&&cd=00060&&site_no=02336000

USGS Hazards Products—Streamail

WaterAlert

Courtesy AJC

USGS WaterAlert

Sends emails/texts based upon user pre-set thresholds

All real-time parametersHourly or daily intervalsThresholds: greater than

less thanbetween a rangeoutside a range

USGS Hazards Products—Webcam

Peachtree Creek Webcam

1st for USGS in SE US

Continuous streaming feed

User can control camera on webpage for 3 min. timeslot

USGS can override at any time

Social MediaTwitter

YouTube

Facebook

Flickr

Pageflakes

Netvibes

RSS

Podcasts

Lessons Learned

1. Must QA/QC data even more rigorously on a daily basis and respond to gage issues faster because critical decisions are being made with limited resources.

2. Streamgage funding is more prevalent during droughts because of duration and areal extent of droughts compared to floods.

3. Raingages are critical and relatively inexpensive addition to streamgage.

4. Drought field operations are can be difficult to manage due to prolonged nature of event producing long-term personnel needs.

Lessons Learned (cont.)

5. Gages must be retrofitted to be able to measure extremely low water levels.

6. Portraying streamflow levels in easy to comprehend way is very important (see WaterWatch pages).

7. Droughts are not all about lack of water—water quality becomes more important with less water for dilution.

8. Early and continued monitoring of groundwater levels can be critical to understanding the extent of drought problems.

Questions…?

Brian [email protected]

(770) 903-9127