The Challenge

As one of the largest saline lakes in the western hemisphere, the lake and shoreline wetlands are a critical staging area along the North American Pacific Flyway with peak migration shoreline bird counts as high as 1.5 million. To accurately monitor this important resource, the USGS has been collecting water surface elevation data at the Great Salt Lake since 1875 and continuously from October of 1902. As lake levels decline and salinity increases, these changes have implications to the Great Salt Lake ecology and economy the lake supports.

Our Solution

In phase 1 of this application, IHDS developers created a website that provides easy access to

• salinity and lake levels;
• current water conditions for major surface-water inflows; and
• real-time data from USGS observation stations through an interactive map.

The lake characteristics matrix from the Final Great Salt Lake Comprehensive Management Plan and Record of Decision is available as a series of data visualizations which highlight effects of the current lake level on each characteristic.