Streamflow and Groundwater Availability

The Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center operates nearly 400 streamgages in Montana and Wyoming. Some streamgages are tucked away in high mountains or remote prairies, while some reside in locations visited by millions of people each year. Uses of data from these streamgages include managing water rights and diversion, informing recreationists, and monitoring flows for fisheries and wildlife...

This streamgage on the Snake River was installed in 1904 and is one of the first streamgages established in Wyoming. Information from this site is used to make decisions on how irrigation water is delivered downstream, as well as monitor conditions for fisheries and recreational activities all year long.

The Snake River flows from Jackson Lake Dam about 25 river miles downstream to this location. As it meanders through the valley it gains water from tributaries on both the eastern and western side of the valley. Streamflow data provides information for downstream water users, as well as monitoring flow for fisheries and recreationists.

The Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center, in collaboration with the Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water Supply System (ASRWSS), is monitoring water quality on a seasonal basis at three U.S. Geological Survey streamgages along the Milk River and Missouri River.

In Wyoming, the application has the capability to delineate basins and basin-characteristic measurements in the StreamStats application.

The Vermilion River is a major tributary to the Lower Clark Fork River in the northwest corner of Montana ( Fig. 1) and is designated as critical habitat for migratory Bull Trout and Westslope Cutthroat Trout. Historic placer, hydraulic, and dredge mining and large-scale clearcutting (via commercial forestry) in the upper portion of the Vermilion River drainage have degraded the river habitat...

The USGS WY-MT Water Science Center operates streamgages in the Snake River Basin in Wyoming that report streamflow in the mainstem of the Snake River and tributary streams. During the spring of 2022, in cooperation with the Teton Conservation District, thermistors were installed at six sites in the basin to record and report water temperature data. There are currently 12 sites in the basin that...

The Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes seek an increased scientific understanding of the water resources within the Fort Peck Reservation of northeastern Montana. Hydrologic information is needed to make informed water management decisions, including the monitoring of instream flows established in the Fort Peck Indian Reservation Water Rights Compact with the State of Montana. The Fort Peck...

The Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative is a long-term science-based effort to assess and enhance aquatic and terrestrial habitats at a landscape scale in southwest Wyoming, while facilitating responsible development through local collaboration and partnerships. The WLCI is an interagency working group of partners that is beginning the process of establishing a much larger coalition of...

The WY-MT WSC is collaborating with the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center to understand the dynamics of streamflows in small, mountain streams during the course of the year, and to describe the amount of variability associated with those measurements. These findings will assist fisheries biologists who are researching temperature and streamflow effects on cutthroat trout and will help...

The Blacks Fork is a stream that contributes a salinity load to the Colorado River Basin. In order to quantify the salinity load, collection of continuous streamflow and specific conductance data, and monthly sampling for total-dissolved solids will occur from April 2018 through September 2019. Calculations of monthly and annual salinity loading from the Blacks Fork were published in 2021.

Flow in small mountain and plains streams is dependent on many factors such as precipitation, groundwater inflow, topography, and geology.