The International Joint Commission (IJC) has recently proposed the establishment of International Watershed Boards for watersheds crossing the border between the U.S. and Canada. These boards are to focus on the overall environmental integrity of each watershedwater, land and airand monitor and report on all relevant concerns, including questions of habitat, biodiversity, exotic species and pollution from all sources. Members are proposed to be drawn from all levels of government and from a wide range of interests, serving in their personal and professional capacities and not as representatives of governments or interests in order to promote a cooperative, non-adversarial approach.
By identifying and addressing new issues, the boards may be able to prevent them from becoming environmental crises or trans-boundary conflicts. The Commission is proposing the establishment of watershed boards for 10 trans-boundary watersheds, of which five are located in the western region: St. Mary River and Milk River; Columbia River system; Skagit River; Yukon River and Porcupine River; and Alsek River, Taku River, Stikine River, and Iskut River.
Since the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty established the IJC, the two countries have officially recognized that each is affected by the other's actions in lake and river systems along the border. The six commissioners must follow the Treaty as they try to prevent or resolve disputes. Cleaning up the Great Lakes may be the Commission's most visible joint venture in recent decades. For more information, contact George Mallum, IJC, Washington, D.C., (202) 736-9000.
by the U.S. Geological Survey
Floods are the nation's most destructive natural disaster and TV news accounts of sandbag-wielding citizens trying to stem the tide of a rampant river make it seem as though floods are bigger and more devastating than ever, but are floods becoming more severe? Not so, say two U.S. Geological Survey researchers, at least not on streams most sensitive to climatic variations.
USGS hydrologist Harry Lins and USGS mathematician Jim Slack calculated trends for 395 climate-sensitive streamflow gaging stations in the conterminous United States during the twentieth century, which are reported in the Jan. 15, 1999 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.
The authors note that "there has been considerable speculation as to whether or not an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxidepopularly referred to as greenhouse, or global, warmingis causing floods and droughts to become more severe. Based on our analysis of changes in long-term streamflow across the nation, we see no evidence that it is."
Since the 1940s, and probably throughout the twentieth century, the USGS researchers said, the general pattern has been toward increasing streamflow in most regions of the conterminous United States. Decreases appear only in parts of the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast. By analyzing changes in flow, from the lowest daily flows each year to the highest flows, Lins and Slack were able to get a more complete picture of streamflow trends over time.
"When we looked at the low to middle range of flows," Lins said, "we saw a distinct upward trend. For example, if we take the lowest one-day flow, which is called the annual minimum flow, nearly one-third of the stream gages that we analyzed showed an increase. This same pattern was also true for the annual average, or median, streamflow. At the highest flows, however, only four percent of the gages experienced increases, while five percent showed decreases.
"We can draw three general conclusions from these trends," Lins said. "First, the nation's streams are carrying more water on average. Secondly, the streams are experiencing less severe hydrologic droughts, and thirdly, the streams are not experiencing more floods."In other words," he said, "the United States is now less extreme hydrologically than it was earlier in the century."
The USGS, in cooperation with more than 800 state, local and other federal agencies, operates a streamflow gaging station network, currently about 7,000 stations across the country, to collect information about the nation's water resources. Data from these stations, more than 4,000 of which provide"real-time" information via satellite, are used for a multiplicity of purposes including flood hazard mitigation by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, resource planning and infrastructure design of reservoirs and dams.
Historical data from the entire USGS streamflow gaging network can be accessed easily via the world wide web (http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis-w/US/). This data set contains about 160 million daily streamflow values from over 17,000 stations that have been gaged by the USGS. Some of these records are over 100 years in length. These long-term historical records were critical to the USGS study reported in the Jan. 15, 1999, issue of GRL and to future studies of how human actions and long-term climate variations affect the flow of the nation's rivers.
Contact: Harry Lins, USGS, 703-648-5712, hlins@usgs.gov; or Gail Wendt, Chief, Customer Relations and Communications, Office of Information, WRD, USGS, 439 National Center, Reston, VA 20192, 703-648-5604, 703-648-5644 (fax), gwendt@usgs.gov.
A new US Geological Survey (USGS) circular, "Ground Water and Surface Water: A Single Resource", presents an educational overview of resources too often viewed as separate entities. The interdependence of these two aspects of a single water resource and their effects on one another necessitate that policies and management practices be developed from that single resource viewpoint. Key concepts illustrated with text and graphics include:
· The hydrologic cycle and interactions of ground water and surface water.
· The ground-water component of streamflow.
· The effect of ground-water withdrawals on surface water.
· Chemical interactions of ground water and surface water.
· Effects of human activities on the interaction of ground water and surface water, such as irrigation development and nitrogen use.
Highly illustrated and formatted with easy-to-read text and photographs of the locations and situations being discussed, the 79-page report is published as USGS Circular 1139. It's available free by request to the Branch of Information Services, USGS: Phone 1-800-USA-MAPS, Fax (303) 202-4639; e-mail: infoservices@usgs.gov [Website is http://water.wr.usgs.gov]
Davis helped with the transport of plants, refreshments, and other preparations. The Putah Creek Council is looking for organizers and community groups to adopt additional project areas along the creek. Contact Ron Unger, Putah Creek Council Restoration Coordinator, at (530) 756-8611.
On a personal note, I really enjoyed helping with this project and spending a day on the creek with my daughter, Chloe (10), and our friends and neighbors, including old friend and famous fish-guy Peter Moyle. I know this kind of restoration is happening all over the country. E-mail me about your favorite hometown watershed project and we'll include it in a future issue.
Another Tributary note: former WMC President Richard Harris is now on sabbatical for 6 months at the University of Hawaii and can be reached at: Department of Agronomy and Soil Science, Sherman Laboratory, 1910 East West Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822. Temporary e-mail while on sabbatical is harrisri@hawaii.edu.
And remember, if you've reached a watershed in your career or have an interesting tidbit of watershed news, let your colleagues know about it. Drop a line to Tributaries, c/o Clay Brandow, 1528 Brown Drive, Davis, CA 95616, or call me at (916) 227-2663. Internet e-mail is best. e-mail me at: clay_brandow@fire.ca.gov or tributaries@yahoo.com .
Governor's Press Release, February 18, 1999
SACRAMENTO. Governor Gray Davis has announced the appointment of Thomas Michael Hannigan as Director of the Department of Water Resources and as a member of the Fish and Game Commission.
A landmark cooperative effort among 15 federal agencies has produced a common technical reference manual containing stream corridor restoration technology. Stream Corridor Restoration: Principles, Processes, and Practices provides expert advice and field-tested methods to help protect and improve the nation's stream corridors every step of the way. Designed to assist technical practitioners and others, the handbook gives guidance in the planning, designing, and implementing of stream corridor restoration initiatives.
Agencies that comprise the Federal Interagency Stream Restoration Working Group also developed the interagency training course, "A Framework for Stream Corridor Restoration", based on the handbook. This course and the supporting course, "Working at a Watershed Level", were developed to provide federal agencies with a common approach to training. Participating agencies included EPA, TVA, and the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Defense, and Housing and Urban Development.
To order the handbook in paper copy ($71) or CD-ROM ($60), call the NTIS Sales Desk at 1-800-553-6847. The final Web version of the document should be available at: http://www.usda.gov/stream_restoration.
