Each morning for nine weeks in the fall of 2007, a minivan pulled up outside the USGS Idaho Water Science Center in Boise. Emerging from the vehicle, a group of men and women made their way inside the F.H. Newell Federal Building to begin another day of work. They talked among themselves as they walked, but the language in which they spoke was not English but Arabic.

These were employees of Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources. They had traveled from cities and towns throughout their Middle Eastern homeland to the high desert of Idaho to learn about the latest methods for monitoring and managing their nation’s water resources.

Working with USGS scientists, they learned how to use real-time, satellite-assisted stream-gauging stations and how to take field streamflow measurements with acoustic Doppler current profilers. They also learned how to manage and analyze the the data these tools collect for decisions on water management.

"We're trying to help them develop capacity within their agency," said hydrologist Stephen Lipscomb, associate director for the USGS Idaho Water Science Center. Although Iraq is largely a desert nation, it is blessed with abundant water resources — more, in fact, than many of its neighbors. Two of the region’s three major rivers — the Tigris and the Euphrates — flow through Iraq, carrying runoff from snow that falls in the mountains of Turkey. The MoWR once oversaw an extensive hydrologic monitoring network for managing these water resources. But decades of internal strife, wars, and embargoes left the MoWR unable to maintain its infrastructure or to keep pace with evolving water-monitoring techniques.

The USGS, with more than 100 years of stream-gauging expertise, stepped in to help. With funding and equipment from the U.S. Department of State’s Iraq Transition Assistance Office and the Italian Ministry of Environment and Territory, scientists and engineers from USGS and other agencies set about to help their Iraqi counterparts. They would work together to construct a modern hydrometeorological network for providing real-time information vital for public water supply, agricultural needs, ecological restoration, and flood control.

In 2005 and 2006, Lipscomb joined a team of USGS, IMET, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers personnel that traveled to Iraq to provide training and support. The American and Italian team shared their knowledge about the latest stream-gauging methods. Teachers and students then worked together to construct two gauging stations with real-time data access via satellite relay. They located one on the Lesser Zab River at Dokan in northern Iraq; the other, on the Tigris River at Feish Khabour on the Iraq-Syria border. Today, a total of five real-time gauging stations are in operation, with another 115 planned for the coming years. A quarter of those 120 stations will also be able to provide water-quality data.

In May 2007, the USGS and IMET hosted MoWR engineers in Treviso, Italy, for training. There they learned how to set up and operate a satellite ground station for receiving the real-time, satellite-communicated data from gauging stations. IMET purchased the ground station, which is being moved to the MoWR main office in Baghdad. Until the ground station is installed in its new facility, USGS is retrieving the satellite data and making them available to the MoWR through the USGS’s National Water Information System Web site.

The training program then moved to Idaho, where Iraqi scientists and engineers could visit active USGS gauging stations. While in Idaho, the scientists were also able to visit snow-monitoring stations, dams, and a University of Idaho test flume used to study sediment transport. Through a mixture of classroom presentations and hands-on field training, the MoWR personnel gained valuable knowledge and experience in using automated stream-gauging equipment and computer software for records processing.

The benefits of this international training and assistance program extend to all corners of Iraq. Agriculture will flourish with optimized irrigation. Flood risks, particularly from the flood-prone Tigris River, can be averted. Electricity — still an unpredictable luxury even in Baghdad — can flow steadily to light and cool Iraqi homes. And in southern Iraq, water can flow again to the historical marshlands that once supported a thriving “Marsh Arab” population, as well as abundant fish and wildlife. The 8,000 square miles of priceless habitat were drained under the Saddam Hussein regime to drive out the Marsh Arabs who opposed him.

These human benefits, Lipscomb said, are what make all the travel and logistical work worthwhile. “We're developing some close personal relationships and ties with the Iraqis,” he said.“I think we're going to be able to help them move forward, and that's a very satisfying part of my job.”