ABOUT THE MINNESOTA
WSC

• • Office information
    • Mounds View
    • Grand Rapids
  • Welcoming message
  • Center Newsletter
    • Newsletter Archive
  • Current Issues
  • Newsroom
  • Employee directory
  • USGS Phonebook
  • Education
  • Cooperators
  • Information requests
  • Employment

USGS IN YOUR STATE

USGS Water Science Centers are located in each state.

A Welcome from Jim Stark, USGS Minnesota Water Science Center Director

The USGS was established by Congress in 1879 to provide the Nation with reliable and impartial information in order to understand the Nation's natural resources. This information is used to protect life and property from natural disasters, manage the Nation's natural resources, and protect the environment. The USGS is a scientific organization concerned with providing credible, relevant, impartial, and timely information to all.

Today, the USGS is known for its long-term and extensive data-collection networks, and research of water, mapping, biology and geology issues in Minnesota and throughout the Nation. These efforts provide policy makers, managers, and scientists, and the general public with information needed to understand and make decisions about the State of Minnesota's natural resources.

The USGS Minnesota Water Science Center primarily addresses water issues. These include flooding, surface-water, and ground-water quality. The USGS Minnesota Water Science Center investigates the occurrence, distribution, quantity, movement, and chemical and biological quality of Minnesota's surface and ground water. Specific water resources activities of the Minnesota Water Science Center include maintenance and analysis of long-term (prior to the turn of the Century) quantitative and qualitative data for streams, reservoirs, estuaries, and ground water; and short-term interpretive investigations of specific water-resources issues on a local, State, regional, and national level. Such investigations include the study of urbanization and flooding, water quality of the Minnesota's major river basins, sedimentation of rivers and lakes, and contamination of surface water and ground water by hazardous waste. The USGS in Minnesota primarily carries out its activities from two offices in Mounds View and Grand Rapids, with a highly trained staff of scientists, technicians, and support personnel committed to providing accurate and timely natural resource information.

I hope that you find the information on the following pages to be helpful, interesting and informative. If you have any comments or suggestions on how the pages could be improved to better serve your needs, please contact the USGS Minnesota Water Science Center Webmaster. Please browse these pages and let me know how I can make this service more useful to you.