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ExpectMore.govExpectMore.gov home pageEXPECT FEDERAL PROGRAMS TO PERFORM WELL, AND BETTER EVERY YEAR.
 
Program Assessment

Program

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US Geological Survey - Water Information Collection and Dissemination

The program collects, integrates and disseminates water quality and quantity information to improve management of the nations' water resources. The program focuses on establishment of protocols for monitoring and organizing information, and maintenance of long-term monitoring sites.

Rating

What This Rating Means

PERFORMING
Moderately Effective

In general, a program rated Moderately Effective has set ambitious goals and is well-managed. Moderately Effective programs likely need to improve their efficiency or address other problems in the programs' design or management in order to achieve better results.
  • The program generally meets its program goals. For example, 61% of aquifers have monitoring wells to measure impact of drought and climatic variations. However, the program will have to increase efficiencies or increasingly use external data sources to maintain existing capabilities in a relatively flat budget climate.
  • The Water Information program effectively uses interagency groups to coordinate with other federal agencies, state and local government, private sector and non governmental organizations. The Advisory Committee on Water Information and the National Water Quality Monitoring Council provide a forum for development of data standards, coordinated monitoring and communications across agencies.
  • The program has an effective website for distributing and visualizing water information. However, more work is needed to improve data sharing with information systems of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Improvement Plan

About Improvement Plans

We are taking the following actions to improve the performance of the program:

  • Outline program of study by the USGS Ground-Water Resources Program to improve our estimates of regional ground-water availability across the Nation.
  • Publish technical information to support Mississippi River Basin/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force & EPA plan to target federal funding in 100 Mississippi River Basin watersheds
  • Convert USGS streamgage stations to high data rate radio transmission capability.

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