USGS Streamflow Monitoring in Georgia NIDIS Early Warning System Development Workshop May 18-19, 2010 Callaway 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/ . Send to and in the subject line put the USGS station number, like Get a reply: The latest river stage and streamflow values you requested from StreaMail. Site: Station name: PEACHTREE CREEK AT ATLANTA, GA Date: 09/30/2009 Time: 09:00:00 Stage: 2.95 feet Streamflow: 90 cubic feet per second (cfs) Link to charts for : Stage: &site_no= Streamflow: &&site_no= &site_no= &&site_no= USGS Hazards Products—Streamail

WaterAlert Courtesy AJC USGS WaterAlert Sends s/texts based upon user pre-set thresholds All real-time parameters Hourly or daily intervals Thresholds:greater than less than between a range outside a range

USGS Hazards Products—Webcam Peachtree Creek Webcam 1 st for USGS in SE US Continuous streaming feed User can control camera on webpage for 3 min. timeslot USGS can override at any time

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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 McCallum (770)