WORKSHOPS
The Planning Committee is organizing three workshops at the AWRA 2023 Summer Conference. NEW for #AWRA2023, there is no additional charge to participate in these workshops but you must add the workshop that you want to attend as a program item to your conference registration. Read below for more details.
Wednesday, July 19 | 1:30 - 5:00 PM
Workshop 2: Emerging Digital Tools for Effective Water Management in Water Scarce Regions
Join the USDA-funded secure future water team for a workshop about emerging digital tools for effective water management in water scarce regions. There will be a happy hour during the workshop for those who attend. Invite your colleagues - download a flyer to share with others!
Moderator: Nick Santos, UC Merced | Merced, CA
Presenters:
- Lauren Parker, USDA California Climate Hub
- Katherine Hegewisch, University of California, Merced
- Josue Medellin-Azuara, University of California, Merced
- Robyn Grimm, Environmental Defense Fund
- Nick Santos, University of California, Merced
- John Henry Burns, Environmental Science Associates
Abstract: Across the Western US, forests, farms, ranchlands, and people are reliant on an increasingly volatile and vulnerable water supply. Climate change will challenge these water resources through more frequent and intense heat waves, longer and deeper droughts, reductions in winter snowpack, and increases in atmospheric and plant water demand. Effective water management in this new normal will require the development and use of a broad suite of information and resources. This workshop will showcase several resources that can be used by water users and water managers alike to support climate-informed decision making. Workshop participants will be introduced to tools including OpenET for gathering near real-time crop water usage, the Groundwater Accounting Platform for water balance and trading, OpenAg for assessing climate impacts on agriculture, the Water Data Decisions Dashboard, and the Climate Toolbox for gathering historical drought data. The USDA California Climate Hub’s Adaptation Workbook will serve as a framework to highlight how these tools can be used in a real-world decision-making scenario. Workshop participants will benefit from a start-to-finish example and in-depth tutorials informing the stages of their own decision making to more effectively manage water resources in the West.
Wednesday, July 19 | 1:30 - 3:00 PM
Workshop 3: Using a Baseflow Separation Model to Forecast Low Flows
Moderator: Christopher Konrad, USGS | Tacoma, WA
Presenter:
Abstract: Water availability during periods of low streamflow is critical for water management but streamflow forecasts are not available for many smaller rivers and streams in the United States. The baseflow separation model BFS recently released by US Geological Survey (USGS) can be used to forecast low flows during dry periods and, thus, the worst-case scenario for water availability. BFS is implemented in the statistical computing language R as a series of functions using only a time series of observed daily streamflow as input. BFS has been automated to download streamflow and model parameters for more than 13,000 streamflow gages. The forecasting capability of the model will be demonstrated at the workshop along with a hands-on tutorial for workshop participants with a computer that has the R or RStudio application and access to the internet. Calibration issues will be discussed along with approaches for re-calibration to improve model performance for different applications.