Timeline of Next Generation Water Observing Systems Upper Colorado River Basin activities.

The USGS NGWOS program is generating high-fidelity, real-time data on water quantity, quality, and use to support water-availability predictions and assessments in the IWS basins. Through modernized data acquisition and delivery systems, these data also are publicly available for informing water operations and decision making especially during water emergencies. In the UCRB, the USGS began planning NGWOS activities in 2019 (project year 1), primarily focused on the UCOL headwaters basins. Initial installations and stakeholder engagement in 2020 led to installation of about half of the planned monitoring infrastructure by the end of 2021 (project year 3). New monitoring, research, and methods development for snow, soil moisture, streamflow, groundwater monitoring, and remote-sensing applications are focused in the UCOL basin with extensions and upgrades to key locations areas in the larger UCRB. Installation of monitoring infrastructure and related studies in the UCRB will continue through 2023 (year 5), and operation and maintenance of NGWOS deployments will continue through the 10-year lifespan of the project.