SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY

1. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY • Overall Goal – from purpose statement: “To improve the availability and reliability of surface water quantity information needed for hazard mitigation, water supply and demand management, and environmental protection”

2. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Meetings Held Quarterly • Spring, 2005 in Reno, NV • Summer, 2005 in Washington, DC • Fall, 2005 (working meeting) in Washington, DC • Winter 2006 in Washington, DC • Next Meeting March 31, 2006 in Reno, NV in conjunction with 2006 Federal Interagency Joint Conference

3. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Present Officers • S. Samuel Lin, FERC, Chair • Steve Blanchard, USGS, Vice-Chair (Terms Extend through September, 2007)

4. Current Member Organizations Agricultural Research Service American Forests Association of State Floodplain Managers Bureau of Land Management Bureau of Reclamation Defenders of Property Rights Federal Emergency Management Agency Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Federal Highway Administration Current Member Organizations (cont.) National Hydrologic Warning Council National Science Foundation National Weather Service Natural Resources Conservation Service Nuclear Regulatory Commission US Army Corps of Engineers US Environmental Protection Agency US Forest Service US Geological Survey (Total: 18 – 14 Federal agencies and 4 interest groups) SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY

5. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Current Work Groups • Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group, • Will Thomas (Michael Baker, Jr.), Chair • Hydrologic Modeling Work Group, • Donald Frevert (BOR), Chair • Satellite Telemetry Interagency Work Group, • Stan Brua (Corps of Engineers), Chair

6. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Hydrologic Modeling Work Group • Most Recent Meeting – April, 2005 in Reno • Conference Call held on January 9, 2006 • Next Conference Call – January 30, 2006 • Held 2nd Federal Interagency Hydrologic Modeling Conference • July 28 – August 1, 2002 in Las Vegas, NV • Attended by approximately 350 participants from • Federal, State and Local Governments • Private Industry • Stakeholder Groups • Universities or Research Institutes • Approximately 160 Technical Presentations and 40 Posters • Five Short Courses on State-of-the-Art Technology – all well attended

7. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Hydrologic Modeling Work Group(cont.) • Next Hydrologic Modeling Conference Scheduled for April 2-6, 2006 • Planning now complete and hotel arrangements made • Format will be joint conference with Federal Interagency Sedimentation Conference (FISC) • Approximately 250 oral presentations – half on Hydrologic Modeling and half on Sedimentation • Approximately 30 posters and 10 demonstrations • Ten short courses and four field trips offered • Registration website now open • Proceedings and Book of Abstracts to be done January 31 • Information Site: http://www.jfic.org/

8. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY • Satellite Telemetry Interagency Work Group • Chartered jointly by the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology (OFCM) and the Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI). • Reports to OFCM’s Committee for Environmental Services, Operations and Research Needs ( C/ESORN) and ACWI’s Subcommittee on Hydrology. • Acts as a user's group for major users of the GOES DCS. • Coordinates funding for user-desired improvements to the GOES DCS. • Members include BOR, USGS, Corps of Engineers, BLM, Forest Service , NOAA, and others. • Met twice during 2005 ( Sacramento, CA in May; Baltimore, MD in Nov)

9. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Satellite Telemetry Interagency Work Group(cont.) Major Activities in 2005 • Presented concerns for the GOES-DCS system at a NOAA Stakeholders meeting in March. • Developed a funding agreement template to enable STIWG agencies to fund the DOMSAT component of the GOES-DCS, in light of new funding requirements. • Coordinated funding from OFCM to pre-pay the DOMSAT contract through FY 08. • Continued to investigate the needs for a DCP with 2-way satellite communication capabilities. This would enable isolated land and marine based DCP’s to be programmed remotely. A SBIR proposal to conceptually develop a low cost, low power and reliable DCP transceiver was submitted by NOAA/NOS and approved. The GOES-R satellite requirements for these DCP’s were also investigated and identified.

10. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Satellite Telemetry Interagency Work Group(cont.) Major Activities in 2005 ( cont. ) • STIWG member agencies invested considerable effort and resources toward the “cooperative” development of a web-based Emergency Data Distribution Network (EDDN) to resolve many of STIWG’s GOES-DCS backup concerns. The EDDN would enable users to receive DCP data on a short-term basis during non-satellite related GOES-DCS outages at Wallops. The EDDN would utilize networked Direct Readout Ground Stations (DRGS’s) and central data repositories operated by STIWG agencies. • Successful prototype was developed by COE. Interagency firewall issues still need to be addressed. • An inventory of suitable STIWG agency DRGS’s was conducted. • A joint USGS/NESDIS project to develop full DRGS capabilities at USGS’s EROS facility in Sioux Falls, SD has been proposed and is currently being evaluated.

11. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Satellite Telemetry Interagency Work Group (cont.) Major Activities in 2005 ( cont. ) • STIWG members continue to be concerned about the future of the GOES-DCS program, in light of a NOAA RFI to the private sector soliciting input for a “new approach” and, more recently, a recommendation by NOAA to examine the transitioning of its own observing networks to commercial satellite. A document is currently being prepared for submittal to STIWG parent committees to (1) address the criticality of the GOES-DCS tor member agencies and others, (2) present STIWG concerns, and (3) request guidance on ways to strengthen relationships with NOAA and become more involved in NOAA’s budgeting and strategic planning processes.

12. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group • Most Recent Meeting – November 14-15, 2005 • Work group formed in Dec. 1999 to address three main issues: • Preparing a list of “Frequently Asked Questions and Answers” about Bulletin 17B - Guidelines For Determining Flood Flow Frequency (Interagency Advisory Committee on Water Data, 1982) • Developing guidance for “Flood Frequency Estimates” on ungaged watersheds • Developing guidance for “Flood Frequency Analysis” for regulated watersheds • List of “Frequently Asked Questions and Answers” on Bulletin 17B posted on the work group web site • Paper entitled “Evaluation of Flood Frequency Estimates for Ungaged Watershed” posted on the work group web site

13. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group(cont.) • 29 of 43 Bulletin 17B references are on the USGS web site under the Office of Surface Water, USGS http://water.usgs.gov/osw/bulletin17b/bulletin_17B.html • Ongoing Tasks: • Preparing a report on flood frequency techniques for regulated watersheds • Developing a plan to test new statistical procedures for Bulletin 17B Benefit: Provides a forum for discussion of flood frequency analysis issues among experts throughout the country and a mechanism for developing improved techniques

14. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Flood frequency research needs • Procedures for ungaged watersheds and/or regulated watersheds • Adjustments for watershed changes (urbanization) and treatment of nonhomogeneous flood data • Mixed populations analyses • Treatment of outliers, zero flows, historic and paleoflood data • Comparative analyses to validate Bulletin 17B results • Estimation of regional/generalized skew • Alternative frequency distributions and fitting methods • Improved procedures for determining confidence limits

15. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Plans to investigate possible revisions to Bulletin 17B • Following plan discussed with Subcommittee on Hydrology (SOH) on January 12, 2006 – approval to proceed • Proposed plan is research that can be accomplished in a reasonable time frame (year) with limited resources • Stay with fitting Pearson Type III distribution to logs of annual peak flows using a method of moments approach • Plan presented as information to ACWI, results of proposed research will be provided at future ACWI meetings

16. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Plans to investigate possible revisions to Bulletin 17B (cont.) • Evaluate and compare performance of Expected Moments Algorithm (EMA) to the current Bulletin 17B procedures for analyzing samples with historic and paleoflood data, outliers and zero flows • Testing on gaging station data (50-60 samples) and review of comparisons in the published literature • Recommend improved plotting position formula when historic data are available

17. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Plans to investigate possible revisions to Bulletin 17B (cont.) • Describe and recommend improved procedures for estimating regional / generalized skew • Bulletin 17B skew map will not be replaced at this time • Describe improved procedures for defining confidence limits that include the uncertainty in the skew coefficient • Describe confidence limit procedures for EMA if adopted

18. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Plans to investigate possible revisions to Bulletin 17B (cont.) • Work will be accomplished by HFAWG members, no additional funding requested • Investigations to be completed by December 31, 2006; coordination, review and approval process completed in 2007 • Product will be a new Bulletin 17C describing the new procedures • Review and approval of new Bulletin 17C will be coordinated with the SOH, ACWI, and OMB with a public comment period

19. SUBCOMMITTEE ON HYDROLOGY Key Websites: • http://water.usgs.gov/wicp/acwi/hydrology/index.htmlfor general subcommittee information • http://water.usgs.gov/wicp/acwi/hydrology/hydrol_members.html for rosters • http://water.usgs.gov/wicp/acwi/hydrology/mtsconfwkshops/index.htmlfor conference and workshop information