Basin Planning

The River Basin Planning section prepares and updates the State Water Plan, statewide water-use numbers, regional conservation goals and basin reports. These plans present, summarize and analyze valuable data collected by the Division of Water Rights and provide important guidelines and support to local entities working to prepare and satisfy Utah’s future water needs.

This section also collects streamflow data, reservoir levels, municipal and industrial water use, land use estimates, precipitation and area evaporation rates, as well as other parameters. The data is used in the development of the Division of Water Resource’s water budgets that help evaluate water use in Utah. These water budgets are used in division models to help understand how water systems interact within a hydrologic basin and to plan for future needs.

Along with collecting water use data, the section is also addressing issues related to drought by revising and documenting our drought reporting and monitoring procedures, working with a regional group to evaluate economic impacts of drought in the southwest region and developing a group to make meaningful contributions to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report.

Additional Resources

2021 State Water Resources Plan

2019 Regional Water Conservation Goals

2019 Utah Water Users Workshop presentation on the Development of Regional Water Conservation Goals.

2015 Municipal and Industrial Report and 2015-2020 water use data can be found on Utah’s Open Water Data site.

Utah Reservoir Levels

Basin Reports

Utah Drought Information

United States Geological Survey

U.S. Drought Monitor

NOAA Drought Information Center

Coming Soon

Ag to M&I Conversion Process

To learn more about the River Planning  Section, please contact Rachel Shilton at 801-538-7271 or email rachelshilton@utah.gov.