Climate Change Impacts on Freshwater Resources: USGS Seeks Public Comment on Draft Report to Congress

The U.S. Geological Survey and the Advisory Committee on Water Information have called for comment on a draft report to congress "Strengthening the Scientific Understanding of Climate Change Impacts on Freshwater Resources of the United States." The report was produced in response to the Omnibus Public Lands Act which called for a report describing the current scientific understanding of each impact of global climate change on freshwater resources of the United States. Do you have any comments or suggestions you could make to help strengthen this report to congress? Public comments are due on April, 22 so hurry and get yours in!

View the full report here.

This draft report reviews some of the key issues related to the available data on freshwater resources and climate change, and identifies the next steps that need to be taken to improve the Nation's ability to predict and respond to changes in freshwater resources that will likely result from a changing climate.

The six main 'review elements' covered in this report include:

• Assess adequacy of current hydro-climatological observational networks

• Identify data gaps in current water monitoring networks

• Improve data management to increase efficiency of data acquisition and reporting

• Establish a data portal to enhance access to water resource data across agencies

• Facilitate the development of hydrologic and other models to integrate data that reflects groundwater and surface water interactions

• Apply hydrologic information to resolve water resource problems including improvement of ecological resiliency

All public comments are due April, 22, 2011.

Submit your comments via email to tschertz@usgs.gov. Please write "9506 Report" in the subject line of your message, and include your full name and return address in the body of the message. Comments may also be submitted via mail (though it will take longer, giving you less time to submit your comment!) to: T. Schertz; U.S. Geological Survey; 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, MS 412; Reston, VA 20192.

For more information, click here or contact T. Shertz, 703-648-6864.