Web Tools

To help resource managers plan and mitigate long-term drought impacts in the Colorado River Basin, the USGS has launched a platform that brings together science, data, and mapping and analytical tools from across the basin in a central location.

The Coconino aquifer (C aquifer) supplies water to northeastern Arizona. Proposed increases in groundwater withdrawal to meet population demands, coupled with ongoing drought conditions, increase the potential for water-level changes in the aquifer. The USGS monitors groundwater and surface-water conditions in northeastern Arizona.

The National Water Dashboard (NWD) is a mobile, interactive tool that provides real-time information on water levels, weather, and flood forecasts - all in one place on a computer, smartphone, or other mobile device. The NWD presents real-time stream, lake and reservoir, precipitation, and groundwater data from more than 13,500 USGS observation stations across the country.

In December of 2007, Freeport-McMoRan Safford Inc. (FMSI) (formerly Phelps Dodge Safford, Inc.) began production at the Safford Mine in southeastern Arizona, about 8 miles north of the town of Safford in Graham County. The long-term role of the USGS at the Safford Mine is to help ensure that the effects of mine-related pumpage on the regional aquifer are known and quantified.

The Tucson Active Management Area (AMA) is a semi-arid region in southern Arizona. Historically, groundwater pumping in the Tucson AMA exceeded recharge for many decades. Gravity-based methods developed by the USGS can be used to directly measure groundwater-storage changes, providing an estimate of total storage change that does not rely on uncertain estimates of inflows and outflows.