Transcript NEC Standard Presentation Format

Enhancing The NWS Role In The Provision Of
Water Resources Forecasts And Information:
Developing Water Resources Services
for the 21st Century
August 11, 2010
Outline
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Why are we doing this?
What did we look at?
What are we recommending?
Why are we recommending this
option?
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Why are we doing this?
• NWS Strategic Plan
– Deliver a broader suite of improved water
services to support management of the
Nation’s water supply
• NOAA Strategic plan
– Improved water resource management
• Chartered by Corporate Board to
address current water issues and
future water resources service gaps
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What Did We Look At?
• Evaluated water service gaps from
Corporate Board presentation and charter:
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River Forecasting gaps
Water Resource Forecasting gaps
Observing System gaps
Future gaps and objectives (e.g. common
operating picture, WRPS, archive, test bed)
• Evaluated options:
– Take no action,
– Add resources and functions to augment existing
organizations, or
– Create a national water support center
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Team’s Evaluation Criteria
• Centralized functions
– Economy of scale; gain superior benefits from
critical concentration of subject matter experts
– Requires national coordination or production
– Efficiency from automation of routine processing
• Localized functions
– Requires local or unique knowledge or expertise
– Requires coordination with local users or partners
• Relationship of national center to field offices
similar to HPC, TPC, or SPC to WFOs and
RFCs
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Options Considered
• 1- Status Quo
– No addition or improvement of services without loss of
current services
– Existing gaps remain
• 2 - Augment national and local offices
– Augmenting local offices does not provide critical
concentration of expertise to address gaps
– Scope of gaps far exceeds capability of any existing national
entity(s)
• 3 - Create national Water Support Center
– Would provide needed support for tasks that benefit from
centralized functions
– Would not address the need to augment field offices
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What are we recommending?
• Recommended option combines features of 2 & 3
• Enhance local and regional office components to
provide local knowledge, expertise and
collaboration
• Reorganize OHD into Office of Water Resources
• Enhance some existing national office
components or incorporate within national center
• Develop new major functional components within
a national center
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What are we recommending?
• Enhance local and regional office components to
provide local knowledge, expertise and
collaboration
– RFCs and WFOs
• Products and services to meet the following gaps and
objectives
– Comprehensive suite of high-resolution water resources
analysis and forecast products
– River forecasting service gaps (e.g. low flow, uncertainty,
complex hydrology, dynamic flood inundation
– Water forecasting service gaps (e.g. coverage and variables
outside of rivers, GIS-ready, decision support)
– Observing system gaps
• Expertise and resources to provide economic decision
support services
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What are we recommending?
• Enhance national office components or
incorporate within a national center
– Water Resources Research and Development
• Develop science and software tools to meet stakeholder
requirements for water resources forecasts
– Water Resources Services
• Develop stakeholder contacts and establish more detailed user
requirements for water resources services, develop policy, prioritize
development, and increase the focus on economic decision support.
New subject matter expert skill sets will be needed including social
scientist and communications specialist, water law specialist,
economic specialist, and education specialist.
– Water Resources Operational Support and Training
• Serve as first line responder for all queries from WFOs and RFCs
related to the data and application software used in the development
and provision of river, flood, and water resources forecasts.
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What are we recommending?
• Develop new major functional components
within a national center
– Operations Center
• Provide operational production of a comprehensive suite of national
high-resolution water resources analysis and forecast guidance
products on a 24x7x365 basis
– Proving Ground
• Provide RFC test bed to support development and testing, RFC
service backup, and provide faster water forecasting research to
operations
– Archive Facility
• Provide central archival of key water resources data, products and
services
– Integrated Information Service
• Develop telepresence for enhanced collaboration
• Provide shared data services, geointelligence, and common
operating picture for water resources
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Why are we recommending
this option?
• Only option that met evaluation criteria
• Several gaps can be addressed through
economy of scale
– Concentration of subject matter experts provide
focused critical mass to:
• examine and develop appropriate water resources
products and services
• design and develop necessary infrastructure
• examine science of water resource services not yet
addressed
• Local augmentation provides for
– Use of local, unique knowledge & expertise
– Coordination with local users or partners
– Ability to transform RFCs to Water Resource Service
Centers and to provide Water Resource Extension
Agents to WFOs
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Relationships and RolesWFOs and RFCs
• WFOs maintain ownership of warning and hazard
information services
• RFCs maintain ownership of river and regional water
resources product and information services
• Field offices may provide local or unique subject
matter expertise as visitors at WSC
• Field offices play key roles in customer/partner
outreach and training at the local level
• WSC provides national scale water resource data and
guidance products
• WSC provides requirements, policy, science, system,
and software development, testing, and support
• WSC provides subject matter expertise to local offices
and assists in training development
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RFC Evolution to Water
Resources Service Center
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Continue as local hydrology experts, providing river forecast
products, services, and outreach
Calibrate and recalibrate high and low flow hydrologic
models, using real time verification and post analysis to
improve products and services
Use WSC guidance for soil moisture, vegetation, snow
states, etc., as input to local high-resolution models to
produce local/regional gridded forecasts of streamflow, water
temperature, salinity, soil moisture, water quality, and other
hydrometeorological variables for the Water Resources
Product Suite (WRPS)
Provide hazard and economic decision support services
Expand partnerships with local and regional water resource
organizations and agencies
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SUPPLEMENTAL SLIDES
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Relationships and Roles NCEP
• WSC provides water resources guidance that involves
an expert analyst interacting with national scale data
and models
• WSC uses NCEP products as input and tools (e.g.
HPC QPF grids, CPC precipitation and temperature
outlooks, EMC land surface and sub-surface elements)
• Collaborative communications with source NCEP
offices required
• WSC products and other water resources data may be
used by NCEP centers to improve related products
• Major computational elements of WSC operational
production may migrate to NCEP Central Operations
on supercomputer
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Relationships and RolesOCWWS/HSD
• Hydrologic Services Branch – focus of existing
hydrologic programs, products and services
• Water Resources Services Branch – begin developing
stakeholder contacts to establish user requirements,
develop policy, prioritize development, increase focus
on economic decision support
• Hydrologic Support Branch – operational support to
field offices on existing hydrologic systems and
software; expanded role with implementation of
gridded water resource products and statistical
ensemble models
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Relationships and RolesOCWWS
• Observations Division – hydrometeorological
data and observation network requirements
• Climate Services Division – linkages between
hydrology, water resources, and climate
• Operations and Requirements Division –
systems interface requirements, communications
infrastructure, change management
• Training Division – hydrologic and water
resources training development and delivery
• Performance and Awareness Division –
coordinated outreach and verification programs
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Relationships and Roles –
Office of the CIO
• Enforce IT security
• Collaborate on telepresence
technology
• Collaborate on RFC testbed and water
resources archive system design,
development, and implementation
• Collaborate on interagency Common
Operating Picture
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Relationships and Roles OST
• Collaborate on design, development
and implementation of RFC test beds
and water resources archive
• Collaborate on telepresence
technology
• Collaborate on interagency Common
Operating Picture
• Water resources requirements in NWS
system evolution
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Relationships and Roles OOS
• Incorporation of water resources
requirements into the design,
implementation, and management of
operational observation systems
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Relationships and Roles NOAA
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NOAA Regional Teams identify and exercise opportunities
for collaboration in the summit-to-sea approach to water
resources
NOAA National Ocean Service provides expertise on
geographic and hydrographic survey techniques and data
and on coastal and esturine interactions
NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and
Information Service provides climatic and satellite data and
expertise
NOAA Office of Ocean and Atmospheric Research works to
move hydrometeorological science from research into
operations
NOAA Climate Service works in impacts of climate and in
climate data networks
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service deals with
environmental impacts to anadromous fish
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Functional Requirements
Analysis (Example)
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Potential National Center
Organizational Structure
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Why Not an NCEP Center?
• Some of the proposed WSC functions are currently
being accomplished by, and the infrastructure and
basic expertise is present within, portions of HQ and
NOHRSC.
• These activities will be expanded to do more
• Thus, initial reorganization and expansion of HQ and
NOHRSC to accomplish water resources duties would
be more efficient than expanding any one of the NCEP
centers or moving the WSC under NCEP.
• The Water Support Center will rely heavily on
collaborative relationships with external partners and
agencies at both the local and national levels, and will
focus on social impacts and economic decision
support
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Why should HSD be part
of OWR?
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Hydrologic and meteorological services today focus on
hazard information and decision support
Water resources services will focus on societal impacts and
economic decision support, yet the linkages are close
between quantity of water and its quality and value
Collaborative efforts with external partners supported within
the existing structure will need to be enhanced and
broadened to provide necessary water resource services in
the new organization
Linkages between existing and emerging requirements,
science, and technical development must be reinforced
The existing matrix management structure in hydrology and
water resources should be formalized for efficiency
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References
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Team Charter to Evaluate Establishing a National Operational Water
Support Center (WSC)
Integrated Water Forecasting: Beyond the AHPS: Critical gaps and
the Way Forward; Don Cline, Corporate Board briefing, May 13,
2009
The NWS Integrated Water Science Plan (IWSP); Report of the
NWS IWSP Team, Nov. 24, 2004
Integrated Water Resources Science and Services (IWRSS): An
Integrated and Adaptive Roadmap for Operational Implementation;
Don Cline (ed.), IWRSS Workshop Participants, Cross-Cutting
Theme Teams for Human Dimensions and Technical Information
Services, regional Case Study Contributors, DRAFT v1.1, Feb. 2009
Central United States Flooding of June 2008, NWS Service
Assessment, December 2009
Flood Event in the Dakotas and Minnesota, principally the Red River
of the North, March - April, 2009
RFC Operations Team Report, 2003
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