[Scorecard] how are we doing?

[Caitlin Cornwall]

I'd like to propose a couple of things that I believe will help our  
scorecard answer the question that we are charged to answer: how is  
this watershed doing in terms of providing water to meet human and  
ecosystem needs indefinitely?

Names of indexes should be readily understandable. The indexes should  
highlight the likely sources of any problem in the water system.
current index “Recent Conditions” à index “Weather” (and score it!  
See below.)
index Supply à Streams
index Storage à Groundwater
promote the indicator Water Retention to an index. This index  
connects Streams and Groundwater, and reflects the physical condition  
of the watershed like Streams and Groundwater do. Could call it Water  
Capture?
Water Stewardship as is, minus Water Retention.
Scoring
We may not have time or budget to implement this suggestion, but it  
seems quite important: We are leaning heavily on scoring against the  
historical record, and not enough on scoring against the requirements  
of beneficial uses. Since our charge is to compare the watershed’s  
condition to the needs of various beneficial uses, we ought to—when  
we can—score results against these needs. For instance, we could  
score dry reaches or dry season flow against the needs of salmonids  
and well users and riparian trees. We could score precipitation and  
annual flow against a frequency of extreme droughts, floods, and  
storms that are damaging to property and streams, and/or against the  
rain requirements of desirable plant communities. We could score  
groundwater levels against the needs of well users and summer  
streams. To implement this suggestion would create more indicators,  
but might not need more metrics than the ones we have. If we can’t  
score metrics this way within our current budget, we can write  
recommendations to do so in our reports.

Frances and I have not yet incorporated your recent versions into the  
Tech Reports. If you can go back to your sections and discuss any  
additional scoring targets that are based on human and ecosystem  
needs, that would be great.

And any thoughts you have on these proposals would be welcome.

Caitlin



On Oct 22, 2008, at 4:25 PM, Bob Zlomke wrote:

Hi everybody,

It sounds like Rainer has the right idea about how to calculate the  
proportion of water used that comes from the watershed.

On the proportion of rainfall that is used by people, I don't  
remember the numbers from Lisa that Rainer refers to, but for the  
precip indicators for both watersheds we estimated the total annual  
volume of rainfall, which can easily be compared with Peter's annual  
totals for water use.  As to where we would address this issue on the  
Scorecard:  putting it under Recent Conditions would be illogical,  
because we decided to make that Index reflect the hydrologic  
background, independent of human management.

Both Caitlin's questions come up, to my mind, under Stewardship:  the  
first one under Water Use, where it would be natural to compare the  
water use data that are being looked at directly with the precip data  
from above (the Recent Conditions Index);  and the second one under  
Water Self-sufficiency, where we have introduced the import totals.   
I suggest that Peter & Rainer consider incorporating those questions  
in their respective sections.  If for some reason they don't seem to  
fit very well there, maybe we shouuld put them under the Summary and  
Recommendations (also by Peter).

Bob

From: scorecard-bounces at sonomacreek.net [mailto:scorecard- 
bounces at sonomacreek.net] On Behalf Of Rainer Hoenicke
Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2008 6:02 PM
To: Caitlin Cornwall
Cc: scorecard at sonomacreek.net
Subject: Re: [Scorecard] how are we doing?

Hi, all -

Those two questions are key, and I think we can answer them.  The  
Water Self-Reliance indicator, when teased apart (right now, it has  
two "metrics" in it - even though they really are "indicators" in and  
of themselves), shows what proportion of the water that's used by  
people comes from the watershed.

The numbers Lisa put together in terms of AFAs coming down from the  
sky, ending up in groundwater, estimated for evapotranspiration, and  
showing up as flow might easily be put together with Peter's water  
use data.

Rainer

On Oct 17, 2008, at 4:56 PM, Caitlin Cornwall wrote:

> Peter and I were just talking, and we found that we were both not  
> sure that our evolving scorecard will convey an answer to the  
> question of how well the watershed is doing in providing water for  
> human and ecosystem uses. Are the indexes arranged properly to  
> convey that answer? What do you think?
> Here are a couple of very basic info-bits that our scorecard could  
> convey:
> What proportion of the water that falls on the watershed is used by  
> people (vs runoff, ET, gwtr recharge)? Reported as a pie chart,  
> including slices for major land use categories. Info for Sonoma is  
> in gwtr mgt plan.
> What proportion of the water that’s used by people comes from the  
> watershed? Reported as a percentage.
> Where in the scorecard do these facts belong?
> Do we have a way to track volatility in weather? That is, not  
> dryness or wetness as we’ve discussed conveying in a row above our  
> indexes on the scorecard, but an indicator of expected increases in  
> frequency of droughts, storms, and floods.
> Any thoughts?
> Caitlin
> _______________________________________________
> Scorecard mailing list
> Scorecard at sonomacreek.net
> http://sonomacreek.net/mailman/listinfo/scorecard_sonomacreek.net


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sonomacreek.net/pipermail/scorecard_sonomacreek.net/attachments/20081024/e01f55b1/attachment.html>