Losses of life and property in the United States resulting from hydrologic hazards, including floods, droughts, and related phenomena, are significant and, in some cases, can be devastating. With over three-quarters of federal disaster declarations resulting from water-related events, national interest in having the best-possible hydrologic data, information, and knowledge as the basis for assessment and reduction of risks from hydrologic hazards is clear. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) plays a variety of roles related to hydrologic hazard science and preparedness. The agency’s data collection, research, techniques development, and interpretive studies provide the bases for national, state, and local hydrologic hazard risk assessment and reduction efforts. This report from the WSTB aims to help shape a strategy and improve the overall framework of USGS efforts in these important areas.

The USGS is well known as the nation’s primary supplier of streamflow data. But, the report concludes that the USGS should expand its efforts to document and analyze extreme hydrologic events, both during and after their occurrence. The report recommends that the agency’s efforts in hydrologic hazards analysis should proceed according to a strategy that features (1) maintenance of the integrity and continuity of the national stream gaging network; (2) improved stream gaging network design, measurement techniques, and instrumentation for the measurement of streamflow and stream stage; (3) postaudits of technical responses and predictions of major floods; (4) improved discharge measurements of extreme floods; (5) improved approaches for regional flood-frequency estimation; (6) improved methods for drought forecasting; (7) investigations of the long-term stationarity of floods and droughts; and (8) improved techniques for low flow frequency analysis and its relevance to instream flow management and ecologically-based regulatory criteria.

The report also recommends that the USGS should place new emphasis on rapid data acquisition and retrieval during extreme events, and explore new methods for integrating datasets over several scientific disciplines. Geographic information systems technology may offer techniques for integrating, analyzing, and displaying dissimilar datasets for improved analyses of hydrologic hazards. Expansion of Internet use has affected the USGS approach to disseminating hydrologic data and related information, and the agency currently offers real-time data on the Internet for more than 3,900 stream gaging stations. This capability means that principal customers of USGS hydrologic data are no longer only scientists and planners, but today include emergency managers and the public. Beyond the expansion of real-time monitoring networks, the USGS is encouraged to add risk-based interpretation to its hydrologic data, such as comparison with historical data and simulated visualizations of flood inundation areas.