ENHANCEMENT AND EXPANSION
Selected Perspectives: As of Spring 2009, all but five percent of reservoir-survey data in RESSED are from the period 1930-1990. New data are being added to a temporary off-line database as they become available and are quality checked, before being added to RESSED. It is possible that additional bathymetric-survey results exist for the current 1,823 reservoirs before 1994, and probable that some of these reservoirs have since been (or will be) re-surveyed. Some of the reservoirs included in the RESSED database no longer exist.
About 79,000 dams are listed in the National Inventory of Dams (NID). About half of the reservoirs listed in Spring 2009 version of RESSED also are listed in the NID. If bathymetric-survey data exist for but ten percent of NID reservoirs that are not cross-listed in RESSED, compilation and entry of these data would increase the number of RESSED reservoirs by about 4-fold to about seven thousand.
The March 2009 version of RESSED represents about 0.03 percent of U.S. impoundments (Simley, 2007), as determined by the EPA/USGS National Hydrography Dataset (NHD). This statistic further illustrates that the present RESSED database – albeit the largest single programmatically based reservoir survey database available for the United States (U.S.), according to the Subcommittee on Sedimentation – contains data representing only a relatively minuscule number of U.S. impoundments.
Anticipated Short-Term Future Activities: In recognition of the importance of reliable water supplies for the Nation, quantification of rates at which the nation’s impoundments are losing capacity is considered a high priority by the Subcommittee on Sedimentation. To this end, the Subcommittee is developing plans to enhance and expand the RESSED database. Enhancements include adding improved reservoir location information, and additional bathymetric-survey data for existing reservoirs. Expansion of the RESSED database focuses on adding reservoirs and related bathymetric data.
The Subcommittee is cognizant of the fact that the Spring 2009 RESSED database structure is archaic and not amenable for capturing all pertinent reservoir survey data produced by the today’s technologically advanced instruments and methods. The RESSED workgroup of the Subcommittee plans to convene an “expert panel” comprised of those with expertise in reservoir surveys, database design and management, and HTML programming. The primary goals of this expert panel will be to:
- compile protocols for reservoir surveys and to identify those that might be recommended for use by the Subcommittee
- recommend an architecture for a robust reservoir database to meet the needs of the Nation in the 21’st century; and
- identify potential funding sources and mechanisms to develop and post online the new database structure with supporting protocols.
As yet there is no timetable for this unfunded expert panel to accomplish these goals.
An Interim Solution Toward Updating RESSED: Despite the lack of a timetable for the expert panel’s tasks, there remains a clear and urgent need on behalf of the Nation to begin the process of improving and expanding RESSED. To this end, pending a complete overhaul of the database structure, SCS Form 34 is being HTML-coded so as to provide an efficient means of collecting survey data missing from RESSED. This effort, however, has proven to be more complicated than originally anticipated, in part due to the fact that there are but 47 front-page fields on SCS Form 34 that result in population of no less than 393 fields in the RESSED Microsoft® Access ® database. Until this reverse-engineering process can be completed and tested, the Subcommittee asks that those with revisions and (or) reservoir survey data missing from RESSED to complete and submit the form available on the UPDATING RESSED – INTERIM GUIDELINES page. The Subcommittee will compile the submitted information. When the on-line SCS Form 34 data-entry scheme is completed, the Subcommittee will respond to the email address provided asking that the data be entered by that application.
