Water Source Facts: Water Research Lab

If you’ve made the drive from Logan to Bear Lake, you may have noticed a large building with a glass facade at the mouth of Logan Canyon. The Utah Water Research Laboratory is a one-of-a-kind facility that engineers and policy makers from around the world turn to for water expertise. The facility was dedicated in 1965, so it’s celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. One of the most unique aspects of the building is its ability to divert water from the Logan River and channel it inside the lab to flow through hydraulic models or test a new valve design, for example.

 Workers here are developing new digital technologies that may soon help us use water smarter. They’re finding better ways to make water cleaner; and they’re pioneering new ideas in irrigation engineering. The lab spends about 10 million dollars a year on research and employs about 60 full-time employees and more than 150 undergraduates and graduate students.

One of the main focuses at the lab right now is remote sensing. Using small autonomous aircraft, researchers can photograph large plots of farmland and use sophisticated software and satellite images to make predictions about how much water a crop uses. When it’s fully implemented, experts say this form of precision agriculture could boost efficiency two-fold.

 Water Source Facts are part of UPR’s partnership with Utah State University’s 2015 Year of Water and the College of Engineering.