PAPERBACK Free Resources |
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 31
4
Future WRD Organization
Water resources problems are no longer as scientifically
straightforward as the mapping of streams for irrigation that
occupied USGS researchers a century ago. As mentioned in
Chapter 2, solving today's complex problems requires inter-
disciplinary teams of scientists who work together on problems of
national interest. For example, predicting the fate of a ground
water contaminant requires knowledge not only of ground water
flow and contaminant transport but also of chemistry (to resolve
whether the contaminant reacts with other substances in the water
and surrounding media) and biology (to determine whether
organisms degrade the contaminant). Preventing premature aging
of a lake requires knowledge not only of the lake but also of the
entire watershed to determine the sources of excess nutrients.
To meet the coming challenges, in the next 25 years, the WRD
will need to direct more resources toward interdisciplinary, multi-
scale research projects. At the same time, the WRD will need to
maintain its data networks and, where appropriate, continue its
involvement in solving local problems. This chapter suggests how
the WRD can allocate its resources to cultivate multiscale projects
in the three areas that encompass most of its work: data collec-
tion, problem evaluation, and fundamental research. The chapter
also recommends how a WRD reorganization could promote inter-
disciplinary and regional research.
EVALUATING THE THREE PROGRAM AREAS
Below are suggestions for how each of the WRD's three
program areas could be enhanced or scaled back to meet emerging
water resources challenges.
31
OCR for page 32
32
Pre paring for the Twenty-First Century
Long-term Data Collection
The USGS currently operates about 7,000 stream gaging
stations. Maintaining this network is critical to documenting and
understanding long-term changes in basin hydrology. To an
increasing extent, human activity is altering stream flows
significantly, usually with an adverse impact. For example,
urbanization increases flood flows and decreases drought flows.
Climate change, too, may affect water supplies. For monitoring
long-term variations in water supplies, continuous records of
stream flow at sites that are part of a national network must be
maintained indefinitely into the future.
The current network cannot remain static. The data network
needs to be expanded in some areas. For example, more gages are
needed in smaller basins, especially where the physical character-
istics that affect runoff are relatively homogeneous. Gages set in
smaller basins would serve three purposes. First, they could
collect the data essential for testing the influence of physical
variables (e.g., runoff, rainfall, soil properties, vegetation, and
topography) on the scaleup of models from small to large basins.
Second, they could form a representative network of sites for
evaluating new measurement techniques (e.g., monitoring soil
moisture with
time-domain
reflectometry probes, tracking
· -
vegetation or soil moisture with remote sensors, and determining
flow paths and residence times in catchments by recording
concentrations of stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopes). And
third, they could produce data to further understand runoff
generation, flood-wave propagation, channel erosion, sediment
transport, and other processes.
Though the WRD's data networks need expanding in most
places, there may be locations where data collection is serving
only a single user (as opposed to contributing to the national
network or to furthering scientific knowledge) and should be
discontinued. Such decisions, however, should be made only after
careful consideration.
Problem Evaluation
The types of problems the WRD helps local governments
address range vastly in scope: from large, regional projects such
as the investigation of saltwater intrusion into the Hudson River
to small projects such as determining the amount of a particular
agricultural chemical in the runoff of a midwestern farm field.
OCR for page 33
Future WRD Organizatio,.
33
.~ ~ ~ ~ : ~ ~ :~ : ~: : . it. ~ :: ~
By: ,_
_~_e-=
~.,~ _ ~......
i.
.~. ~
:: ~
~ ~ ~ ~ .. ....:
FIGURE 7 Processing large-volume water samples from Lake
Hoare: the filtration unit is in the sled on the left, the 10-gallon
milk cans are used to collect the water from the filtration unit,
and the crates are used to transport the full milk cans by
helicopter to the research laboratory at McMurdo Station.
CREDIT: U.S. Geological Survey, E. D. Andrews.
The committee believes that, in the future, the fraction of district
resources allotted to regional-scale projects must be increased.
Research into how to measure, interpret, and quantify ground
water flow and water quality in extensive regional aquifers
should receive more attention than studies of contamination at
one site.
We are not implying here that attention to smaller sites is not
important, because basic scientific questions often demand
intensive observation and experimentation at the local level. But
districts will need to be able to deal with regional problems as
well as those bounded by state lines. The WRD will have to
ensure that in the future, its district offices are structured to
handle studies that cover several states and require expertise from
a range of disciplines.
OCR for page 34
34
Pre paring for the Twenty-First Century
Fundamental Research
Increased fundamental water science research will be
necessary to address increasingly complex water and environ-
mental management issues.
. · · · ~ · .
This research is essential for
providing the sc~ent~~~c base upon which the WRD will build
future programs. In the WRD, such research is carried out mostly
under the auspices of the National Research Prgram, centered at
three of the agency's four regional offices (Reston, Lakewood,
and Menlo Park). We have three recommendations relating to how
the WRD can enhance its fundamental research programs.
First, the WRD should increase funding for fundamental
research. Currently, fundamental research receives 15 to 25
percent of the total WRD budget. We recommend that the WRD
boost this allotment to 30 to 35 percent, primarily for experi-
mental and field support of basic research. Though this goal may
be difficult to achieve because of budgetary and workforce con-
straints and existing obligations, the WRD should aim for this
level of funding to ensure its ability to address as yet uniden-
tified problems.
Second, we believe the WRD should continue to administer the
grants program authorized under the Water Resources Research
Act. The current arrangement, though it is funded at a grossly
inadequate level, benefits the WRD, the university research
community, the states and regions in which the Water Resources
Research Institutes are located, and the water resources profession
in general. The WRD, perhaps more than any other agency, has
knowledge of scientific needs, a research tradition, and the
capability to disseminate and in some cases use directly the
research results that the grants program generates. A challenge
now is for the WRD to enhance the current low level of funding
($4.4 million appropriated in FY 1991 for the grants program,
compared to an authorized level of $20 million)--either with new
money or through the reallocation of other research funding
available to the WRD.
Further, the WRD should encourage fundamental research at
the district level. The WRD has already made some progress in
expanding district-level research. Both the Merit Project System
(a competition among districts for research funds) and the
Research Grade Evaluation Guide (which allows district per-
sonnel to be evaluated on research productivity rather than on
more traditional measures) have increased interest in research at
OCR for page 35
Future WRD Organization
35
the district level. In addition, programs such as the Toxic
Substances Hydrology Program have fostered collaborative efforts
between districts and National Research Program personnel at
common research sites.
REORGANIZING TO MEET FUTURE CHALLENGES
Currently, WRD district budgets vary by a factor of 10: the
smallest districts have annual budgets of about $1.5 million, while
the larger districts have budgets of nearly $15 million annually.
The uneven resource distribution has resulted in a vicious circle
for small districts: lacking resources (staff, lab equipment, and
personnel), they cannot develop large projects that would increase
their revenue; lacking revenue, they cannot invest in the resources
necessary for supporting large projects. The discrepancy in WRD
district size may inhibit efficient coordination of the large-scale
multidisciplinary projects that will likely dominate WRD pro-
grams in the future. Solving large research problems and carrying
out complex programs (e.g., NAWQA) requires a critical mass of
scientists from a broad spectrum of disciplines interacting on a
continuing basis. This critical mass may be reached most
efficiently when resources are consolidated instead of being
spread across numerous small districts that lack the resources to
take on large projects.
One possible way to surmount the difficulties the small dis-
tricts face and to ensure a critical mass of scientists for large
projects is to combine several smaller districts into larger units,
which we will call centers. The centers would cover several states
or river basins. (Combination by basin is preferred because it is
more defensible scientif ically, but combination by states is
probably more practical for implementing federal/state coopera-
tive programs.) Each center could have three subsections: one to
direct federal/state cooperative programs, one to oversee data
collection for federal programs like NAWQA, and one to under-
take fundamental research. Each center's research section could
house a staff of scientists who would form a center of excellence
for a specialized water science discipline. (In New England, for
example, the district office might host a center of excellence for
glacial aquifer research.) Where possible, centers could be co-
located with major universities to provide intellectual stimuli
through seminars, access to libraries, and peer interactions. (One
example of a WRD office interacting with an academic commu
OCR for page 36
36
Preparing for the Twenty-First Century
nity is the association between the Menlo Park office and
Stanford University.) Cooperation between these centers and the
National Research Program could be encouraged by temporarily
assigning research program scientists to centers or vice versa.
Consolidated centers, unlike independent small districts, could
afford to hire multidisciplinary staffs (hydrologists, geologists,
. · . · . · · , ~ . ~ · ~ .
Larger
engineers, chemists, biologists, and mathematlclans).
offices would be more attractive to Ph.D.-level scientists because
they would offer the opportunity to conduct theoretical research
and apply that research to real problems. Likewise, practicing
professionals at large offices could learn to use the newest
scientific advances in their everyday work. In addition to large
scientific staffs, centers could afford sophisticated lab equip-
ment, lab technicians, and advanced computer systems.
Consolidating small districts is one way to reorganize the
WRD; other organizational models might be equally effective.
However, without undertaking an extensive study of the WRD's
organization and structure, we cannot offer a specific course of
action that will meet the objectives sketched in this report.
Regardless of which organizational model the WRD chooses,
reorganization must be implemented with great care and delibera-
tion. Though some schemes for reorganization may appear attrac-
tive in the abstract, pitfalls that decrease efficiency must be
avoided. For example, we have suggested consolidated centers as
one organizational model, but the additional administrative layers
that accompany larger offices could increase the layers of
bureaucracy to the point of slowing research. Combining offices
could also endanger contact with local and state governments and
citizens' groups; unique geographic problems in geology demand
that the WRD maintain a strong presence at the state level.
Further, it is important to consider the morale of personnel in
one-state districts that would be combined. Employees must see
their roles as being undiminished under any reorganization.
Despite potential difficulties, we believe that changes in the
structure of the WRD will be required to keep pace with changes
in its future mission.
REEVALUATING THE WRD MISSION STATEMENT
The recommendations this report offers could form the basis
for the WRD to update its mission statement to provide a frame
OCR for page 37
Future WRD Organization
37
work for long-term planning. The statement should identify the
WRD's strengths, such as its long-term databases and its nation-
wide network of hydrologists, and its weaknesses, such as the
need for more interdisciplinary water science research into
problems with h igh social interest. In updating its mission
statement, the WRD should encourage input from all parts of the
agency as well as from outside experts. A coherent- national
program cannot emerge by sweeping together a loosely related
collection of initiatives that originate in the districts or from
individual scientists. High-level WRD scientific staff and
management should provide the "big picture" and the comprehen-
sive long-term vision needed to build and guide the types of
coherent national and district programs from which budget
· e ~ · · e
1nltlatlves originate.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
future wrd
