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The Integrated Water Resources Science and Services (IWRSS) is a new business model for interagency collaboration. IWRSS
brings a consortium of United States federal agencies with complementary water resources missions together to share resources
to help solve the nation's water resources issues. After the Nashville Floods of 2010, several Federal agencies came together
and initiated an Interagency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2011 to create IWRSS. IWRSS's overarching objective is
to enable and demonstrate a broad, integrative national water resources information system to serve as a reliable and
authoritative means for adaptive water-related planning, preparedness and response activities. The goals are to:
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- integrate information delivery and simplify access to this data
- increase accuracy and timeliness of water information
- provide summit-to-the-sea high resolution water resources information and forecasts
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Currently the collaboration is with four United States federal agencies: USACE, USGS, NOAA, and FEMA. Other federal
agencies are expected to join the consortium in the future. Two initial charters were written to support and help define the IWRSS effort.
The first charter is the National Flood Inundation Mapping (NFIM); with the second charter being the System Interoperability and Data Synchronization
(SIDSRT). More recently, two additional efforts have begun: identification and development of a national
model registry and the second is a formal, regular and scheduled technology transfer program. Interagency teams were
identified and have begun addressing the tasks described in the charters. In addition, an IWRSS pilot project is being conducted
for the Russian River Watershed in California.
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The implementation of the charters represents initial activities that address the IWRSS goals and the objective of
the Building Strong Collaborative Relationships for a Sustainable Water Resources Future initiative to build a Federal Support Toolbox for Integrated Water
Resources Management (IWRM).
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Charters:
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NFIM Charter - National Flood Inundation Mapping
charter will support the collaborative actions required
to develop common flood inundation maps, products and services that will help agencies fulfill their
missions.
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SIDSRT Charter - System Interoperability and
Data Synchronization Requirements Team charter establishes
an interagency partnership for understanding the systems and methodologies used by the involved agencies.
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An IWRSS fact sheet provides further information on IWRSS.
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