The Water Resources Research Institute, which operated at Oregon State University from 1960 to 2000, supported water resources research and technology transfer activities in Oregon. The Institute funded faculty research in many disciplines, including civil engineering, entomology, fisheries and wildlife, anthropology, agricultural economics, and geosciences. The Center for Water and Environmental Sustainability (CWEST) continued the work of the Water Resources Research Institute from 2000 to 2005. In 2005, the Institute for Water and Watersheds became the state water resources research institute for Oregon.
The Institute for Water and Watersheds (and previously the Water Resources Research Institute) is one of 54 state- or territory-based institutes established by the 1964 Federal Water Resources Research Act to conduct and disseminate research on water resources and train new research scientists, engineers, and technicians. Through this program, the Institute receives federal matching funds from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The Water Resources Research Institute Records document research projects supported by the Institute. The records include publications of research results in reports and circulars, research project files, and administrative records. The research project files include agreements, budgetary materials, correspondence, grant proposals, meeting minutes, and research data. The administrative records consist primarily of annual program reports submitted to the U.S. Department of Interior. A variety of water resources research topics are represented in the collection, including geothermal activities in Oregon, restoration of Sturgeon Lake, the effects of Mount St. Helens eruptions in the 1980s on regional watersheds, motorboat-induced stream bank erosion, inter-basin water transfers, and the impact of low-head hydro-electrical dams on Willamette River fish.
Collection is open for research.
Water Resources Research Institute Records (RG 251), Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
This collection is not fully processed; this guide is preliminary.
The records were transferred to the Special Collections & Archives Research Center in 2012.
Seminar series publications, research and special reports, and Tualatin River Basin reports produced by the Water Resources Research Institute are available online in the