The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has just launched an online Water Forum to collect public input on how it can best protect and improve America’s waters. Input is open to any interest — from planning, to scientific tools, to low impact development, to green infrastructure. The emphasis is on means to better use resources and improve outcomes.

The feedback received on the online forum will help lead the discussion at EPA’s water conference where they will engage more than 100 water executive and local water leads from around the country.

Louisiana Senator David Vitter wants to stop the Federal Emergency Management Agency from updating flood maps in areas where levees have been found deficient. The senator would like to see a phased levee certification fix that would allow repairs prior to mapping in order to avoid steep insurance hikes that would hamper redevelopment.

The sticking point seems to be the need for local dollars to fix the problems, with a federal entity that is pointing out the risks.

Today the Department of Interior launched the WaterSMART initiative with a press conference and geospatial presentation. The SMART part of the WaterSMART initiative stands for “Sustain and Manage America’s Resources for Tomorrow”. The president’s proposed budget includes $72.9 million for the WaterSMART program, which is a total increase of $36.4 million over 2010.

A big part of the WaterSMART is for the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Census, which will be conducted for the first time in 30 years. There will also be funds through the Bureau of Reclamation to study entire river basins.

The press presentation for this policy announcement took place in the Department of Interior’s high-tech operations center at their headquarters. The initiative was launched with a geospatial presentation on water supply and demand as a means of providing background regarding the need for such a program.

The new initiative gets a kickoff with a workshop that begins tomorrow with the seven Colorado River Basin States. Among the agenda items is a discussion of the anticipated 20% reduction in water flow due to climate change.

NASA has funded an interdisciplinary research project at the University of Florida that will study the relationship between climate variability and land use and land cover change. The study will use remote sensing and socio-economic surveys to create models to guide communities in adapting to climate change.

The research will include field projects in southern Africa (Botswana, Namibia and Zambia) to address the variability in climate in light of extended drought. The project will address variability of the timing and amount of rainfall and resulting human suffering.

“We hope the grant allows us to better understand the social-ecological systems response to climate variability and so to allow us to develop understanding for future climate scenarios,” said geography professor Jane Southworth, the principal investigator. “Ideally, it will allow for better adaptation strategies for local communities under changing environmental conditions.”

The following YouTube video summarizes the challenge in this region:

More details on the grant and the research project called “Adaptive Management: Water, Wetlands and Watersheds” or AM:W3 can be found here.

Researchers at the National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics (NCED) at the University of Minnesota have developed a virtual stream computer model called Virtual StreamLab to help restore streams to a healthier and more natural state. Virtual StreamLab demonstrates the physics of natural water flows at an unprecedented level of detail and realism.

The researchers believe that the ability to simulate water flow over topography with this degree of realism will provide the insights necessary to improve sustainable stream restoration strategies, help in optimizing techniques to fight erosion, help prevent flooding and restore aquatic habitats in degraded waterways. According to the national data available to the researchers, 44 percent of the nation’s 3.5 million miles of rivers and streams have become degraded due to sedimentation and excess nutrients. This decline has led to impaired water quality over entire watersheds, rendering many streams unhealthy for recreation and public contact. These effects also have serious consequences for the health of aquatic life. Efforts to restore these bodies of water have resulted in an annual cost of more than $1 billion in the United States alone.

NCED is a NSF Science and Technology Center where scientists from previously disparate fields such as geomorphology, engineering, and ecology are working together to understand how biota and ecosystems are linked to landscapes and hydrology, providing predictive insights into how important ecosystem services such as salmon spawning and water quality are linked to each other and to the landscape.

India’s National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) produced satellite imagery that seems to suggest that China is building a dam on the Brahmaputra River. This evidence prompted the government to bypass the typical intergovernmental channels of flood-water data sharing and raise the level of discourse through the Ministry of External Affairs over this project on a river that forms the border between the two countries.

The dam-building exercise seems to be confirmed in the Chinese press with details in print that suggest that a hydroelectric dam is being built in the area. The government in New Delhi seems to be claiming ignorance to this plan.

Read more about this issue in this story in Indian Express.

A retired Indian engineer is hard at work building new glaciers to combat global warming. This one-man geoengineering project involves creating earthen dams in the shady sides of mountain valleys and piping in meltwater that freezes over night. The 76-year-old engineer has built a number of these glaciers that have stored one million cubic feet of ice. The Indian government is now subsidizing his efforts.

Read more in this story in the Telegraph.

The governor of Rhode Island has proposed a $1.5 Billion wind farm off the coast of his state, and a two-year surveying and mapping effort is now underway to study the best location. Three ocean mapping vessels will be working to determine the best place to locate the wind farm, one each from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Rhode Island.

The wind mapping project is part of a larger and long-term Ocean Special Area Management Plan that will define use zones for Rhode Island’s ocean waters for habitat, commercial, energy development and recreation.

The ambitious Ocean Observatories Initiative that’s been 20 years in the making will now be built, thanks to $106 million in federal stimulus money as well as a commitment from the National Science Foundation for a five-year project totaling $385 million.The University of Washington is set to receive $126 Million of those funds for the cable component of the OOI, the single largest research grant that the university has ever received.

The observatory will lay 500 miles of fiber optic cable on the ocean floor that will connect various sensors, instruments and cameras for display and interaction via the Internet. The undersea sensor web will be used to monitor earthquakes, ocean currents, water currents and other ocean processes.

“The OOI project presents an unprecedented opportunity and whole new approach to advance our understanding of how the ocean works and interacts with the atmosphere and solid earth. This project will allow scientists to answer complex questions only dreamed of a few years ago concerning important problems associated with the future health of this planet such as the oceans role in climate change. It is very exciting to be part of this huge step forward in the ocean sciences,” said Bob Gagosian, President and CEO of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership.

The initial phases of construction are to begin this month. The initial data flow is scheduled for 2013, with full commissioning of the system by 2015.

OOI is a key and enabling U.S. contribution to the international Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS: www.earthobservations.org).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has closed the doors of the National Wetland Inventory office in St. Petersburg, Florida after 32 years. The work of this office raised awareness as to the loss of wetlands with its annual reports that alerted the public about the accelerating pressures of land development. This work ultimately led to restoration and conservation initiatives as well as policy changes at both the federal and state levels.

There’s a nice tribute to the organization’s work on The Compleat Wetlander blog that outlines the history of this group, and the fluctuating funding of the effort over the years. The National Wetland Inventory continues, having primarily been relocated to the Madison, Wisc. office. With reduced funding, the office maps roughly 1-2% of the nation yearly, a far different pace from the 80’s and 90’s when the project employed 18 staff and 150 contractors.