S. 1523 — Water Research Optimization Act of 2025

This section modifies the National Water Center (NWC)—the research and operational center of excellence for hydrologic analyses, forecasting, and related decision support services within NOAA's National Weather Service—by (1) locating it explicitly within the Office of Water Prediction; (2) adding functions to lead the transition of federal water research, including model development, into NOAA operations; to serve as NOAA's primary center for research, development, collaboration, and coordination of water activities across federal entities (e.g., USDA, Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, USGS, FEMA); and to integrate and promote consistency among national and regional hydrological operations; (3) requiring use of the Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System, or successor, to develop advanced water resources modeling capabilities and incorporate them into the unified forecast system; (4) striking the requirement for a national operations and services policy directive; (5) directing supervision and oversight of each National Weather Service River Forecast Center, with coordination to the NWC; (6) directing administration of NOAA's duties related to the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology, or successor, with coordination to the NWC; and (7) extending a specified authorization through each of FY2024 through 2028 (from FY2024).