Short-term Water Management Decisions: User Needs for Improved Climate, Weather and Hydrologic Information

This report is the second in a series of reports by the Climate Change and Water Working Group that identifies how to improve supporting information for water resources management decision-making, motivated by potential climate change impacts on water resources. Adapting to these impacts includes potential enhancements in water resources management decisions over the short term (less than 5 years) through improvements in monitoring and predicting hydrology, weather, and climate and through better use of currently available information. This report identifies how federal agencies, along with state, local, tribal, and nongovernmental organizations and agencies, are working together to identify and respond to the needs of water resources management in the changing climate. The report describes short-term water management decision processes within U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation, including how decisions are influenced by assumptions of short-term climate, weather, and hydrologic information. An operator use assessment characterized current information uses by USACE and Reclamation within their short-term water resource management activities. This assessment provides a foundation for identifying opportunities based on user needs and gaps in the currently available information. Needs are identified within four categories: Monitoring Product Needs, Forecast Product Needs, Understanding and Utilizing Information in Water Management, and Information Services Enterprise.