PROPOSAL FOR A U.S. NATIONAL WATER ATLAS1

The U.S. National Committee for the International Hydrological Decade is proposing a National Water Atlas as a contribution to the improvement of the quality of information available for this Nation's large-scale planning and management studies. The atlas would provide hydrological maps of the United States and its principal basins and of its territories. The nationwide maps would be at a scale of 1:5,000,000 and the 17 principal basins at 1:2,500,000. The principal basins will be those delineated by the Water Resources Council. Wherever feasible and appropriate, the data will be presented with a common standard period of record, preferably 1941–70, as a base. Map subjects would include station networks, radiation, precipitation, snow and ice, evaporation, atmospheric vapor fluxes, surface-water discharge, ground-water storage and discharge, chemical quality, sediment discharge, water temperatures, and soil moisture. The list of maps subjects and types of data shown within each subject are flexible and open-ended so that additional maps could be added to the atlas as information is available or as new needs arise.