Display Name: Surface Water Availability (50% Exceedance)
Description: <a href="https://apps.wrd.state.or.us/apps/wars/wars_display_wa_tables/search_for_WAB.aspx" target="_blank">Water Availability Reporting System</a><br><br><a href="https://apps.wrd.state.or.us/apps/wars/wars_display_wa_tables/display_wars_abstract.aspx" target="_blank">About Water Availability</a><br><br>OWRD limits appropriation from streams in the state in order to assure new applicants use of water a reasonable amount of the time and to minimize the regulatory effort by department staff. An appropriate statistic to use in this context is exceedance stream flow. Exceedance stream flow may best be defined by example. The 50% exceedance stream flow is the stream flow that occurs at least 50% of the time. Necessarily, the stream flow is also less than the 50% exceedance flow half the time. Similarly, the 20% exceedance stream flow is exceeded only 20% of the time. The 20% flow is larger than the 50% flow which is larger than an 80% flow. <br><br> Two such exceedance stream flow statistics are used by the Department to set the standard for appropriation: (1) the 50 percent exceedance flow for storage and (2) the 80 percent exceedance flow for other appropriations.<br><br>Water availability is the amount of water that can be appropriated from a given point on a given stream for new out-of-stream consumptive uses. It is obtained from the natural stream flow by subtracting existing in-stream flow requirements and out-of-stream consumptive uses. For a detailed description of the Water Availability Report program and the methodology used to develop it, you may review the report titled Determining Water Availability in Oregon.Ideally a water availability calculation would be done for every watershed associated with a point of diversion or an in-stream water right. A watershed, in this case, includes all lands draining to the stream upstream of the point of diversion or the downstream end of an in-stream water right reach. Because there are so many water rights, the ideal approach is impractical.The practical alternative is to limit the number of watersheds for which water availability is calculated. The delineation of these watersheds depends on the location of in-stream demands and on the physiography of affected streams. Generally watersheds are defined above the mouths of significant tributaries, on main channels above significant tributaries and for all in-stream demands.These delineated watersheds are referred to as Water Availability Basins (WABs). Water availability is estimated at the downstream end, or pour point, of each WAB. Large drainage areas( e.g. the Rogue and Umpqua basins) are broken into a number of WABs. The WABs are nested, each upstream WAB being included in a WAB downstream. For water to be available in a given WAB, it must be available in all the other watersheds in which it is nested.