U.S. Department of the Interior
In the United States, there are currently over 100,000 miles of canal and levee embankments on the national inventory list, most of which are 50 or more years old and have surpassed their initial design life. These aging water conveyance systems are known to lose large quantities of water due to distributed seepage, resulting in major costs of operations and mainte
Dam safety is an ongoing concern for the BOR. In the interests of maintaining modern dam safety monitoring, BOR has started to investigate the use of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) to improve safety, reduce costs, and increase effectiveness.
The Colorado River is the principal source of water for agriculture and riparian vegetation in Arizona, southern California, and southern Nevada.
The BOR operates the Paradox Valley Unit (PVU), a salinity control project located at Paradox Valley in western Colorado that helps to minimize water degradation in the Colorado River. PVU diverts up to 90% of the naturally occurring brine groundwater in Paradox Valley, preventing it from entering the Dolores River.
BOR dams and reservoirs like Colorado’s Vega and Green Mountain, and Wyoming's Seminoe have landslide and/or dam issues that require long-term monitoring. In this research, the use of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is being investigated as a monitoring tool for landslide and dam structure-related deformation.
BOR Population at Risk studies are used to determine the possible magnitude of loss of life in the event of a dam failure. Inundation extent, population at risk, and life loss estimation are the three components commonly considered in failure consequences. Remotely sensed data play a major role in determining population locations and densities.
In the United States alone, there are currently over 100,000 miles of canal and levee embankments and approximately 79,000 earthen dams on the national inventory list. Many of these structures are reaching or have surpassed their initial design life.