Hydrology

Hawaii's Water Cycle by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply

Water Supply in Hawaii

One thing I absolutely love about Hawaii is the transparency.  The State's website has a Residents section that includes a Newcomers section.  The Utilities tab is straightforward:
Hawaii's Newcomers Guide



There is one water supply utility for each county, Honolulu's is the Board of Water Supply (BWS). (You'll also notice we have one electric company, one gas company, and one telecom provider).  Drinking water in Hawaii is predominantly groundwater and administered / regulated at the State level by the Safe Drinking Water Branch of the Department of Health.  There is an invisible line on each Island, the UIC (Underground Injection Control line) that magically protects our drinking water from pollution.  Below it, underground injection wells are allowed, above it they are not.  The line sort of corresponds to the point at which groundwater is brackish to salty and tidally influenced by the ocean.  Surface water and groundwater in Hawaii are considered to be disconnected in the regulatory world, though 18-260 County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund (04/23/2020) and the subsequent USEPA Guidance Memorandum may lead to changes.
Board of Water Supply - Oahu Watersheds from the Watershed Management Plan

Despite the ubiquity of residential irrigation systems and downspouts directly connected to the storm sewer system, we do take water conservation planning seriously.  In fact, BWS runs the Honouliuli Wastewater Recycling Plant which produces reverse-osmosis treated water for commercial irrigation and industrial processes, and is a featured stop on the City and County of Honolulu's Tour de Trash.  Last year I got to spend my birthday on the Wastewater Management tour, which began with a collection system maintenance demonstration on the streets of Kapolei, continued to the Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment plant, and finished at the Honouliuli Water Reclamation Facility
Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment Plant, courtesy of Google Maps.  Honouliuli Water Reclamation is across the street (south of the treatment plant), though not completed in the imagery on Google, and recycles water from the WWTP.

  The State of Hawaii, Department of Land and Natural Resources, Commission on Water Resource Management .  Municipal Sewer & Water Magazine recently ran an interview with someone who works in water management in Hawaii.

Hawaii Freshwater Initiative

Hawaii rain data from NWS Pacific Regional Headquarters  and the rain gauge map

USGS Stream Stats

Methods

I spent 4 years as a Hydrologist 1315 (even promoted to an 11), and the only prior hydrology training I had was black box equations in the back of the Stream Ecology and Wetlands Ecology textbooks.  On the job I learned from USGS, particularly the U.S. Geological Survey Techniques of Water Resources Investigations, which while still partly available online, has been replaced by the National Field Manual for the Collection of Water-Quality Data (there was an announcement in 2017).  You may notice this webpage is subtitled Techniques and Methods Book 9 Handbooks for Water-Resources Investigations.  Searching for USGS Techniques and Methods provides a file directory of Books and chapters listed alphabetically, not in actual order (11 comes after 1, 2 comes after 19).

There were 9 books in the original TWRI:
Book 1 - Water Data by Direct Measurement
Book 2 - Environmental Data (geophysics of surface and groundwater)
Book 3 - Application of Hydraulics
Book 4 - Hydrologic Analysis and Interpretation
Book 5 - Laboratory Analysis
Book 6 - Modeling Techniques
Book 7 - Automated Data Processing and Computers
Book 8 - Instrumentation
Book 9 - Handbooks for Water Resources investigations (including Section A: National Field Manual for the Collection of Water-Quality Data)

In the transition from the Techniques of Water-Resources Investigations to Techniques and Methods, 6 more books on topics beyond just water were added:
Book 10 - Isotopes
Book 11 - Spatial Data
Book 12 - Earthquakes / Seismic Activity
Book 13 - Volcanoes
Book 14 - Landslide and Debris Flow Assessment
Book 15 - Field Manual of Wildlife Diseases
Book 16 - Data Resource Management

EPA. 1991. Inspecting a Parshall Flume.  PublicResourceOrg on Youtube.com.
ISCO 1985.  Open Channel Flow Measurement Handbook.  Lincoln, Nebraska.
Stevens.  Water Resources Data Book.  Beaverton, Oregon
US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation.  1967.  Water Measurement Manual, 2nd edition.
US Environmental Protection Agency.  1988.  NPDES Compliance Inspection Manual, USEPA Office of Water
US Environmental Protection Agency.  1981. 

NPDES Flow Measurement Manual.  USEPA Office of Water.
USEPA, Region4, Science & Ecosystems Support Division.  2015.  Wastewater Flow Measurement Operating Procedure.  SESDPROC-109-R4, Athens, GA



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