USGS Great Salt Lake Hydro Mapper

The USGS Great Salt Lake Hydro Mapper provides easy access to three information resources for Great Salt Lake:

  • Salinity and Lake Levels
    • Graphs that show the relationship between salinity and lake level as well as satellite imagery of the changing lake surface area.
  • Water Data
    • Lake levels for the southern and northern arms of the lake and discharge for locations on major surface water inflows are included.
  • Great Salt Lake Basin Water Dashboard
    • Interactive map that provides real-time stream, lake and reservoir, and groundwater data for USGS observation stations. Weather and other hydrologic information can be added as layers to the map.

Great Salt Lake Resolution (HCR-10) Steering Group

Recommendations to Ensure Adequate Water Flows to Great Salt Lake and Its Wetlands

In response to the decrease in Great Salt Lake levels, the Utah Legislature passed “Concurrent Resolution to Address Declining Water Level of Great Salt Lake” (HCR-10) in 2019. The resolution recognizes “the critical importance of ensuring adequate water flows to Great Salt Lake and its wetlands to maintain a healthy and sustainable ecosystem.” To avoid adverse impacts to Utah’s economy, environment, and the public health of its citizens, long-term watershed planning is required. HCR-10 recommended that a diverse group of stakeholders convene to make recommendations on how to ensure adequate water flows to Great Salt Lake. Their report was completed in December 2020.

Great Salt Lake Advisory Council Resources

Conservation Impacts Study

To inform future water resource planning decisions that may affect Great Salt Lake, the Conservation Impact Study examines the potential impacts of water conservation on water resource planning and develops an action plan of additional studies needed to assist policy makers in more completely understanding the role of conservation in future water resource planning. This evaluation focuses on four primary water providers in northern Utah: Bear River Water Conservancy District (WCD), Cache Water District, Jordan Valley WCD, and Weber Basin WCD. The Study finds that if additional water conservation efforts can significantly decrease water use, there is the potential to further delay, reduce the magnitude, or perhaps even eliminate the need for future large water development projects, such as the currently defined Bear River Development project.

Water Strategies for Great Salt Lake

Building upon the work completed in 2017 to compile potential strategies to address declining lake levels, GSLAC commission Clyde Snow & Sessions and Jacobs Engineering, Inc. to evaluate priority strategies thought to have a high potential to improve water management and increase water deliveries to Great Salt Lake. GSLAC identified 12 priority strategies are organized as Foundational, Operational, and Tactical in nature. Foundational Strategies are intended to remove legal constraints to delivering water to Great Salt Lake. The Operational Strategies serve to inform decision and policy makers, water users, and managers. Tactical Strategies serve to incentivize water users to protect, conserve, and make available water that could be used for deliveries to Great Salt Lake. The Report is intended to provide specific useful information on each strategy so the water user community can choose where to spend their resources in achieving the overarching goal of maintaining or increasing Great Salt Lake levels.

Consequences of Declining Water Levels

To better understand the implications that could result from continued declining water levels at Great Salt Lake, the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council commissioned two reports:

The first report, “Consequences of Drying Lakes Around the World,” examines eight lakes with similar characteristics to Great Salt Lake. It found that drying lakes result in billions of dollars of economic losses, require extensive mitigation efforts and pose severe threats to human health and the environment.

The second report “Assessment of Potential Costs of Declining Water Levels in Great Salt Lake,” synthesizes information from scientific literature, agency reports, informational interviews, and other sources to detail how and to what extent costs could occur at sustained lower lake levels.

Water for Great Salt Lake

In response to an observed long-term decline in Great Salt Lake water levels, in 2017, GSLAC, in cooperation with SWCA Environmental Consultants, compiled a list of potential strategies to increase or maintain water delivery to Great Salt Lake. Strategies were solicited and submitted anonymously or without attribution. This document is intended to facilitate a discussion of potential strategies to maintain or increase the surface elevation of Great Salt Lake. The list is not exhaustive, but reflects an attempt to compile a wide range of strategic options. No ranking or prioritization was completed as part of the compilation process. Inclusion in this document does not constitute an endorsement of any individual strategy by GSLAC or its members. These strategies are ongoing topics of discussion for GSLAC.

Great Salt Lake Health and Economic Significance

During 2011, the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council commissioned two reports to provide information that will aide the council in advising the Utah administrative and legislative bodies on the sustainable use, protection, and development of the Great Salt Lake.

The two major reports and the name of the contractor that led the effort were:

  1. Definition and Assessment of Great Salt Lake Health led by SWCA Environmental Consultants and Applied Conservation
  2. Economic Significance of the Great Salt Lake to the State of Utah led by Bioeconomics Inc.

Final Reports were submitted to the Council at the January, 2012 Work Meetings. Please click on the links below to view the fact sheets and final reports:

Past Activity

 

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