U.S. President Barack Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2017 budget request for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is designed to maintain core USGS science programs as well as to advance priorities set by the USGS Science Strategy Plans. These priorities include informing water management for the 21st century, according to a USGS news release.
The FY 2017 budget request includes a $17.3 million increase above the FY 2016 enacted level of $228 million for water resources research. The budget requests $60.2 million for water resources programs to use in matching state, municipality, and tribal contributions for cooperative water efforts. This includes a $4 million increase under the Water Availability and Use Science Program to develop a near real-time assessment of regional and national water-use trends during drought, the news release says.
An $8.1 million increase would provide funding to help integrate water information from multiple agencies; provide state water resource agencies with data needed for decision-making; and help develop better methods for sampling, estimating, aggregating, and presenting water-use data. This increase also supports efforts to assess water budgets across snow-dominated regions, the news release says.
The budget also includes a $1.4 million increase for the Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program to expand the use of flood inundation mapping and rapidly deployable stream gages, the news release says.
The National Water Quality Program increase of $3.5 million will fund the enhancement of long-term surface- and groundwater-quality monitoring as well as support cooperative and urban-waters activities by providing streamflow and water-quality data to state and local partners. The increase also would fund research to understand the effects of unconventional oil and gas extraction on streams and groundwater, the news release says.
For more information on the president’s FY 2017 budget, see the USGS Budget, Planning, and Integration website.
March 27, 2016
Laws & Regs