| DEVELOPING A VIRTUAL WATERSHED: SEVIER RIVER BASIN | ||
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Several developments in recent years have made basin-wide real-time monitoring and control cost-effective for rural watersheds. The convergence of the following technologies has made low-cost automation a viable reality: (1) low-cost dataloggers/controllers; (2) growing variety of inexpensive sensors; (3) expanding use of solar-energy systems; (4) innovations in communication equipment; (5) rapid advancements in the PC industry; and (6) the phenomenal growth of the Internet. One example of how these technologies are being applied is in Utah's Sevier River Basin (Basin). This self-contained watershed (no outlet to the ocean) is instrumented with low-cost automation equipment and a SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system which uses the Internet and a web browser as a vehicle for real-time data distribution and display.
The Sevier River Basin in rural south-central Utah is one of the state's major drainages. A closed river basin, it encompasses 12.5 percent of the state=s total area. From the headwaters, 250 miles south of Salt Lake City, the river flows north and then west 225 miles before reaching the Sevier Lake. In John Wesley Powell's seminal report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States (1879), a full chapter is devoted to the Sevier River Basin. Captain C.E. Dutton (Powell, p. 144) marvels that "there is probably no region in the world more admirably suited for easy, cheap, and efficient application of (artificial reservoirs) than this very region drained by the Sevier River." A situation that the water users exploited with the construction of Otter Creek and Sevier Bridge Reservoir and the State of Utah exploited with Piute Reservoir. Since the turn of the century, irrigation has depleted the river and the only flows that reach the terminal lake are occasional floods, like those in 1983 and 1984, and some return flow.
The institutional structure for operating the river is relatively straightforward. Operation of the river is overseen by a River Board (an executive committee of the Association) that meets annually to deal with current issues and to make assessments to offset the costs of operating the river. Water rights are administered by two river commissioners (state employees). Other than the two commissioners, there is only one other full-time employee (the office manager for the canals and reservoirs in the lower Basin). Most of the canal companies operate out of the homes of their managers, and employees (i.e. ditchriders, watermasters) are seasonal.
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