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U.S. Department of the Interior
The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) uses Landsat data to help monitor consumptive water use throughout the western United States. BOR analysts use Landsat imagery to map irrigated crops for estimating water demand and to monitor interstate and inter-basin water compact compliance. The BOR is also involved in ecological restoration of a number of rivers in the West. Light detection and ranging (lidar), multispectral aerial imagery, and sonar data are used to generate maps of topography, vegetation, and river channel bathymetry, which help guide restoration activities.
The San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP) is a comprehensive, long-term effort to revive the river’s self-sustaining Chinook salmon fishery by restoring water flows to the river from the Friant Dam to the confluence of Merced River, a distance of over 100 miles. A goal of the SJRRP is to mitigate or avoid adverse water supply impacts from the restoration releases.
Underwater construction projects typically require the creation of high-resolution 3D models of existing infrastructure to retrofit equipment such as gates, valves, trashracks, or bulkheads. Commercially available underwater laser scanning systems can be used to collect 3D point cloud data to facilitate project design. Scanning laser systems can also collect survey-grade bathymetry and 3D point clouds of underwater features. Point cloud data can be used to develop 3D computer models to compute estimates of lengths, areas, or volumes.
In 2012, the U.S. and Mexico signed the historic Minute 319 Agreement to improve binational water management of the Colorado River system. The agreement allowed for a one-time “pulse flow” release of 105,392 acre-feet (130 million cubic meters) of water from the Morelos Dam on the U.S. (Arizona)-Mexico border in March of 2014 to restore the dry downstream stretch of the Colorado River Delta. Bureau of Reclamation scientists are tracking the immediate and long-term effects of the flood pulse on the delta ecosystem.
The Bureau of Reclamation operates more than 300 reservoirs and 8,000 miles of water delivery canals throughout the West. Developing reservoir operation protocols and water accounting strategies requires estimates of open water evaporation, which constitutes a substantial water demand. Historically, evaporation from lakes and reservoirs has been estimated using pan evaporation information.
The Colorado River is the principal source of water for irrigation and domestic use in Arizona, southern California, and southern Nevada.
The locations of existing and proposed water pipelines in multi-county tribal water systems in North and South Dakota are being mapped and documented in pipeline mapbooks. The 2014 National Agricultural Image Program (NAIP) Orthoimagery was used as the basis for pipeline mapbooks, which can include over 2,000 pages. The pipeline data have been collected using field Global Positioning Systems (from Bartlett & West Engineering for this mapbook). Pipelines are depicted as existing Main and Secondary sections and planned Design pipelines.
The Bureau of Reclamation administers the Operating Criteria and Procedures (OCAP) for the Newlands Reclamation Project, which monitors irrigation status of approximately 61,000 acres in Nevada.
The Great Plains Reclamation Dakotas Area Office (DKAO) used remote sensing imagery in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) environment to calculate pump requirements for an irrigation system. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR) point cloud data were used to generate an elevation surface with better than 2-m root mean square error. After an ArcGIS shapefile of irrigation fields was added to the map, the Path/Profile tool in the Global Mapper software package was used to show the elevation profile of a new center-pivot irrigation system.
Changes in sandbar geometry were mapped using historcal and recent aerial imagery to quantify the extent of sandbar encroachment into the water intake structure of the pumping plant for the Buford-Trenton Irrigation District, Williams County, North Dakota. Nine sets of aerial imagery spanning over 60 years and rectified plats from the original 1893 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data were used to study changes in the Missouri River extent and course.
Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR) point cloud data were used to create a new contour map to assist with a facilities engineering project near a recreation area. Previous topographic sources provided insufficient detail: a 1979 topographic-contour map had 20-foot (6.1-m) contour intervals, and the derived digital elevation model (DEM) product would produce only 10-m accuracy.
