photo of MOU signing
Terrence Salt, Marcia McNutt, and Jane Lubchenco sign the MOU between USACE, USGS, and NOAA
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Read the related Press Release
Contacts:
Marty Ralph and Gary Carter
May 13, 2011

NOAA, USACE, and USGS Partner to Support Water Resources Management

During a May 11, 2011 ceremony at Georgetown Waterfront Park, near the Potomac River streamgage in Washington, D.C., the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to form an innovative partnership of federal agencies to address America's growing water resources challenges. Signatories of the MOU were the Honorable Terrence (Rock) Salt, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA administrator, and Dr. Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Water resources decision makers nationwide require new and more integrated information and services to adapt to the uncertainty of future climate, land-use changes, an aging water delivery infrastructure, and an increasing demand on limited resources. These agencies, with complementary missions in water science, observation, prediction and management, have formed this partnership to unify their commitment to address the nation's water resources information and management needs. The MOU also sets the foundation for other federal agencies and partners to elect to join the collaborative partnership in the future.

To meet this demand for information, the Collaborative Science, Services and Tools to Support Integrated and Adaptive Water Resources Management MOU will facilitate addressing water information needs including the creation of high-resolution forecasts of water resources showing where water for drinking, industry and ecosystems will be available. In addition, integrated water information will provide one-stop shopping through a database portal to support stakeholders in managing water resources.

The MOU is important to the HMT because it formalizes on-going and planned activities for IWRSS-like coordination between the agencies in regions where HMT is conducting research on precipitation and weather conditions that support flood and drought mitigation efforts. For example, the HMT-West in California has generated advanced precipitation and snow level research products that are disseminated to the major reservoir operators in the Sacramento and Central Valley region; the California Department of Water Resources, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the US Bureau of Reclamation. In Washington State, operations of the Howard Hansen Dam have been aided by HMT observations of on-shore moisture-laden air masses. Also, there are on-going activities for the Russian River IWRSS pilot project that involve the full spectrum of stakeholders to obtain water information interoperability and decision support.

Formalization of interagency coordination efforts holds promise for increasing the usability of HMT research to support interagency projects that the MOU will foster. The MOU will enable HMT to advance major interagency priorities, including informing foundation science and services concepts for the design of the National Water Center. IWRSS creates a particularly strong and direct path to operations for HMT-driven research, and should increase the extensibility of HMT findings. In turn, HMT's research thrusts on hydrologic forcings (such as QPE and QPF) and surface processes (e.g. soil moisture), can play a key role in advancing the state-of-the-art capabilities amongst the IWRSS Consortium. The HMT network of advanced in-situ and remote observing systems, will provide a framework in which IWRSS products and services can be evaluated and benchmarked.

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