The Colorado River Basin is going through the worst drought in recorded history, bringing new and unprecedented problems both in the basin and in the places that depend on its water. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is trying a new way of working to meet them: the Colorado River Basin Actionable and Strategic Integrated Science and Technology (ASIST) project.
The problem it tackles
The USGS mostly works in separate disciplines and science centers. Drought research in the basin is so large and complex that it is hard even to measure:
- Scattered records. Studies, models and datasets sit in many unrelated places — internal systems, data repositories, local offices.
- Little contact across fields. Scientists and partners in different disciplines rarely interact.
- Integration left to users. Stakeholders often have to combine complex data from different fields, places and topics themselves.
Meanwhile science keeps advancing, and predicting how drought and other changes will affect the Earth system increasingly depends on understanding how studies connect.
What ASIST is for
The project's main aim is to increase the interdisciplinary science the USGS does in the basin and to assess drought's wide-ranging effects, by bringing stakeholders, scientists and technology specialists together. Drought affects human and natural systems in such tangled ways that only interdisciplinary science can supply the data and tools for stakeholders' many overlapping priorities.
ASIST pulls together USGS expertise, capabilities and stakeholder relationships in the basin, adding advanced information management technology so that integrated, actionable information reaches decision makers at the speed and scale they need.
Six stages of support
An interdisciplinary team from the USGS Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions works with a range of projects, supporting them at every stage:
| Stage | What the team does |
|---|---|
| Develop | works with scientists to turn ideas for complex, stakeholder-driven problems into conceptual plans |
| Initiate | turns interdisciplinary concepts into reality, starting new projects with partners |
| Accelerate | speeds up early-stage projects |
| Enhance | widens the science across USGS expertise and connects it with decision makers, so results can be used in resource management |
| Sustain | keeps supporting ongoing projects with the best resources and connections available |
| Grow | finds new partners, resources and uses to extend the science and its products |
Toolbox to support and accelerate interdisciplinary projects. USGS
The toolbox
ASIST offers dedicated support to individual scientists, science groups, science centers, programs, partners and stakeholders who want to expand or jointly develop interdisciplinary drought projects in the basin. In 2021 it built a toolbox of capabilities and resources, which will keep evolving.
The ASIST toolbox. USGS
What it has produced
| Product | What it does |
|---|---|
| A snapshot of stakeholder science needs (Frus and others, 2021) | reviewed more than 200 recent publications and web pages from basin stakeholders, and from their priorities, strategies, issues, missions and concerns identified more than 400 science needs related to drought |
| A stakeholder engagement plan | stakeholders have said they need integrated science to understand what drought will do to the basin's landscape. The plan, with a conceptual model of engagement processes, sets out how to work at the large scales of space and time drought demands, and how to inform many different stakeholders about its causes, effects and possible adaptations |
| Addressing stakeholder needs (Tillery and others, 2022) | the USGS has thousands of free publications, datasets and resources, but they can be hard to find and use; the team invites stakeholders to get involved and collaborate |
| An information management technology plan (Dahm and others, 2022) | steps for using new and existing technologies, data, models and knowledge to support integrated science across the basin — because USGS science depends on adopting new technology as it arrives |
| A science strategy (Dahm and others, 2023) | a whole-organization approach, drawing expertise from across centers and disciplines, to answer increasingly complex Earth-system questions about long-term drought in the basin |
Read more
- A snapshot of stakeholder science needs related to drought in the Colorado River Basin (data release, 2021)
- Addressing stakeholder science needs for integrated drought science in the Colorado River Basin (Fact Sheet 2022–3010)
- ASIST — Information Management Technology Plan (Fact Sheet 2022–3051)
- ASIST Project — Science strategy (Circular 1502)
Sources
Based on Dahm KG, Jones DK, Anderson PJ, Dick MC, Hawbaker TJ, Horton RJ, "Colorado River Basin Actionable and Strategic Integrated Science and Technology (ASIST)," U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2022–3016 (January 2023), U.S. Geological Survey; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The web version stops short, so the project stages and featured resources are taken from the report's PDF. Its project map is drawn on a copyrighted Esri base map and is not reproduced.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from pubs.usgs.gov
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