USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Video)-- Bob Hirsch- Cooperative Science Priorities

Bob Hirsch: The way that priorities have always been set in the USGS water programs is really a combination of what I would call top down and bottom up priority setting. Very, very important to the USGS is our cooperators. These are 1600 different State and Local agencies around the country, water agencies at the state level, municipalities, also other federal agencies that we work closely with. They have important science needs that need to be filled and they work with us at the local level to define tasks that we undertake on a cooperative basis with shared funding to do that work.

At the same time we have national programs and national standards that we set for how we carry out our work. One of those very important national programs is the National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program where we really aggregate the important issues that are raised at the State and Local level. As well as at the national level by partners such as the environmental protection agency and we begin to formulate a set of questions that we can address on a national basis.

So some of our priority setting is very much based on the needs of states and localities, some of it set by a set of national priorities about the policy issues whether its water quality or flooding or ground water availability, set at the national level.

Jody Eimers: Who is at the national level and that process of setting priorities?

Bob Hirsch: The priority setting is really a combination of listening to our field level managers and then bringing back to headquarters the priorities that are out there in terms of what the State and Local agencies are dealing with along with the senior leaders of USGS. Some who have responsibility for river conditions for example, some who have responsibility for groundwater quality, some who have responsibility related to flooding.

These various topical areas with in water and then getting together and talking about those priorities and then bringing those priorities forward to the broader leadership of the USGS, to the administration, particularly leaders at the Department of Interior and ultimately the Congress of the United States. All of these things factor in to priority setting.

Jody Eimers: You mentioned that the 1600 state and local cooperators, I'm curious why they come to the USGS for certain tasks?

Bob Hirsch: There's a number of reasons why they come to the USGS. One of them is that they need the most advanced science in water and they know that we have a long history of really working at the cutting edge and developing new capabilities in ways of answering important questions whether they have to do with flooding, ground water availability, water quality, or a whole host of water issues.

Another reason they come to us is for our neutrality. The fact that we collect data which are freely available to anyone and we don’t take sides on any issues. In fact we work with agencies that have responsibility for developing water resources and building the infrastructure as well as agencies that are responsible for protecting the water resources and keeping it pristine. We work with all of them and they understand our neutrality and value that because they recognize that there are a lot of contentious issues in water resources and they need to start with a common set of facts as they move towards resolving those contentious issues. So they also need to know that they can trust the data that's coming from opposite sides say of the State line, that the data collected in the same way in the upstream State because the downstream State as states work to negotiate some of their inner state issues and they can both work with the USGS to develop that information.

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