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.