Water Management Planning Is a Collaborative Effort

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accelerated the implementation of its Corps Water Management System at 11 districts across the nation. CWMS is a fully integrated decision support system, designed to provide real-time data and analyses for improved system operation. It includes HEC-HMS (precipitation-runoff), HEC-RAS (hydraulic routing), HEC-ResSim (reservoir operation), HEC-FIA (impact analysis), and visualization and data management applications. 

As the lead contractor for this deployment, we managed the work of three consulting firms and coordinated their activities. Tasks included working with the Corps Hydrologic Engineering Center to select watersheds to be modeled, developing the project management plan and performance work statements, facilitating the work of contractors, monitoring progress, reporting to the Corps’ project manager, reviewing the documentation and models prepared by the three contractors, writing the final project report, and coordinating with 11 Corps district offices and HEC.

With funding from the ARRA, we were responsible for deploying CWMS for the Red River of the North (Minnesota and North Dakota) for the St. Paul District, the Buffalo Bayou (Texas) for the Galveston District, and the American River (California) for the Sacramento District. This included working cooperatively with staff of HEC, the three districts, the National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other water agencies to fully implement all components of CWMS.

Our tasks included:

• Identifying district needs and expectations for the project
• Determining how to develop models to fulfill district objectives
• Preparing a hydrologic engineering management plan
• Conducting inventory of existing models, while collecting hydrologic, hydraulic, topographic, economic, and meteorological data
• Developing HEC-HMS, HEC-RAS, HEC-ResSim, and HEC-FIA models and documenting the process
• Integrating those models into the CWMS framework and stress testing the models
• Transferring the technology to district staff
• Writing the final deployment report

Under the aggressive ARRA CWMS schedule, the work was completed in approximately two years.