Measuring Utah’s Water: Lessons From the Logan River Observatory
As concerns about water supply in the West have grown in recent years, the value of good water data has become more evident.
In “Measuring Utah’s Water: Lessons from the Logan River Observatory,” the observatory’s director, Bethany Neilson, presented about the importance of measuring water. She discussed how competing interests paired with water scarcity make water data especially important in the West.
Neilson works at the Logan River Observatory, a government-funded research center at Utah State University tasked with monitoring the Logan River and collecting data. They establish and monitor gauging stations throughout the river to collect data about water levels, quality, temperature and more. The observatory works with other researchers, in addition to local, state and federal agencies, to share data. The observatory is tasked with helping those entities make data-informed decisions about projects involving water.
It takes a lot of time, effort and funding to regularly collect data the way the observatory team does, but Neilson emphasized how crucial it is to have good data before it’s too late.
This presentation was held at the O.C. Tanner Headquarters on September 12, 2024.”
