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SALT LAKE CITY — A first West-wide look at 500 streams and rivers and how they behave in drought includes Utah and five other states, with scientists hoping that the research will better prepare water managers in dry years.
The U.S. Geological Survey is measuring hydrologic flows at rivers and streams in Utah, Idaho, California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington to get a better understanding of how the prolonged drought is impacting the waterways.
Chris Konrad, a hydrologist and the project study chief for the survey, said the research specifically targets those rivers and streams where the agency does not already take stream flow measurements. The USGS has an extensive, real-time monitoring network with stream gauges at sites across the West, with more than a 150 set up in Utah.
"Mostly we gage the larger rivers. This gives us an opportunity to learn what these type of weather patterns means for the smaller streams."
Konrad added that the conditions to survey drought impacts on these smaller waterways are ideal.
"Across the West we had a very warm winter with low snowpack," he said. "We hope to get a sense of what streams are especially vulnerable to warm winters."
While snowpack and stream flow have a strong correlation, Konrad said the amount of snow fall is not the only factor that affects runoff.
Some streams are less vulnerable to a dry winter due to an abundance of groundwater or other conditions that may exist, such as temperature, he said.
David Susong, director of the survey's Utah Water Science Center in Salt Lake City, said study results, which will be available in late 2016, will drive a better understanding of the array of drought impacts on ecosystems, including aquatic wildlife, recreational fisheries, and even how endangered or threatened fish species might be suffering.
"We can use the data we get this year and these measurements as a surrogate for what we might see under a climate change regime."
Mostly we gage the larger rivers. This gives us an opportunity to learn what these type of weather patterns means for the smaller streams.
–Chris Konrad, hydrologist and study chief
The idea, he said, is to build on the information already gathered through stream gauges throughout the West.
"This will increase the density of information we have across the region."
In spring as the runoff beings, Susong said water managers tasked with making the resource last throughout the water year look to the USGS to assess how abundant, or tepid, those flows might be.
Small streams play a critical part in that water supply, but their behavior in drought isn't as understood as larger systems, he said.
"We can look at how low these stream flow conditions are and that can tell us a number of things," he said. "We can use that as an analog to look at the long-term effects of drought and see what streams are most affected, and what streams are not as affected because of groundwater inflow...Understanding this will help us understand the impacts on communities, the impacts on agriculture and the impacts to other users."
