Utah PROJECTS

• Major Projects (view all)
  • Great Basin Ground Water Availability
  • Stream Stats
  • Great Salt Lake Nutrient Cycling
  • Salinity Load Assessment

• NAWQA Program
  • Great Salt Lake Basins

ABOUT THE UTAH WSC

• • Office information
    • Locations
    • Employee directory
    • Office organization
    • What we do
  • Newsroom
  • Outreach/Education
  • Information requests

• • USGS Phonebook
  • Employment

USGS IN YOUR STATE

USGS Water Science Centers are located in each state.

National Water Quality Assessment - Great Salt Lake Basin

Project Chief: Sue Thiros, USGS Salt Lake City, Utah

Problem

The protection and enhancement of the quality of the Nation’s ground-water and surface-water resources are high priority concerns of the public. Consistent and comparable information on the status and trends of the Nation’s water quality is needed to help determine the effectiveness of past programs and to provide a base of knowledge for future management decisions. The U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) was developed to meet these needs.

Objectives

The Great Salt Lake Basins is one of 51 study units that are part of the NAWQA Program. The long-term goals of this program are to describe the status and trends in the quality of a large, representative part of the Nation's surface- and ground-water resources, and to provide a sound, scientific understanding of the primary factors affecting the quality of these resources. The program will evaluate water quality at a wide range of spatial scales, from local to national, and will employ a multidisciplinary approach using physical, chemical and biological measurements to provide multiple lines of evidence with which to evaluate water quality.

The NAWQA program is designed to address the following objectives and answer these questions:

1. What is the condition of our Nation's streams, rivers, and ground water?
2. How are these conditions changing over time?
3. How do natural features and human activities affect these conditions, and where are those effects most pronounced?

Approach

From 1998-2001, the NAWQA Program conducted interdisciplinary assessments and established a baseline understanding of water-quality conditions in the Great Salt Lake Basin. Water-quality conditions in streams and ground water in the study unit are described in many NAWQA publications. NAWQA activities during its second decade (2001-2012) focus in large part on national and regional assessments, all of which build on continued monitoring and assessments in 42 of the 51 Study Units completed in the first cycle (USGS Fact Sheet 071-01). The Great Salt Lake Basin is part of a regional analysis of ground water in the southwestern United States.

Products

National NAWQA Web site
Regional Southwest Principal Aquifers NAWQA Web site
Great Salt Lake Basins NAWQA Web site
Great Salt Lake Basins and Southwest Principal Aquifers NAQWA publications