The Great Lakes Water Balance
Data Availability and Annotated Bibliography
By Brian P. Neff and Jason R. Killian

Introduction | Hydrological Information | Forecasts and Summary

Forecasts of Great Lakes Water Levels

Weekly, monthly and six-month forecasts of Great Lakes water levels are updated and published by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and Environment Canada (EC) under the guidance of the International Coordinating Committee on Great Lakes Basic Hydraulic and Hydrologic Data. The report is available online from either EC or the USACE, or can be obtained in print from the US Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District. 

The Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) publishes a forecast of Great Lakes net basin supply (NBS). This calculation is based on the component method of estimating NBS. MRCC gets climatic data from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and Environment Canada's Canadian Meteorological Centre, and prepares these data for use in models developed by the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL), also a subsidiary of NOAA. MRCC also publishes forecasts of over 20 meteorological parameters used either directly, or indirectly, to compute the variables in the NBS calculation. There is no paper-based publication of these data, but they can be accessed on MRCC's web page.

Summary

Water balance calculations for the Great Lakes have been made for several decades and are a cornerstone of Great Lakes water management. Despite the importance of the water balance, little, if any, attempt has been made to inventory and describe the data available for use in water balance calculations. This study is intended to provide a catalog of major datasets that may be used to calculate the Great Lakes water balance and provide the necessary resources to attain these data. Thirty distinct offices are identified as sources of data useful to calculating the Great Lakes water balance. Datasets identified include all of those that are currently used to calculate the water balance by NOAA, USACE and EC, and several datasets that could be used, but currently are not. An annotated bibliography of important publications dealing with the Great Lakes water balance is included to help direct further reading on the Great Lakes water balance. The findings of this investigation permit resource managers and scientists to assess shortcomings of current datasets and which data are not currently being utilized in water balance calculations.

References

• Bibliographies of selected references

• Full reference list

• Sources of Hydrological data and information

This report is prepared by USGS in cooperation with the Great Lakes Commission.

The Great Lakes Commission is a  multi-agency, multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted team approach to addressing the science and policy of a Great Lakes water management regime will produce such application-oriented products as a water use web site, updated annual water use inventories, ecological evaluations of the system, and an integrated binational role for future Great Lakes-St. Lawrence endeavors.