Transparent accounting for Great Salt Lake water systems
Why this site exists
Great Salt Lake is one of the most studied terminal lakes in North America. Yet much of the information needed to understand the system is distributed across basin plans, agency reports, scientific studies, databases, dashboards, and institutional knowledge.
Individual components of the system are often well documented. However, the relationships between those components are frequently difficult to trace, compare, or reproduce consistently across different sources.
Great Salt Lake Accounting is an independent reconciliation framework that links basin inflows, depletions, storage changes, and lake response using publicly available data. The goal is not to replace existing studies or datasets. The goal is to make major system terms, assumptions, boundaries, and relationships visible, connected, and reproducible.
In that sense, the primary contribution of this site is not new data. It is the integration, reconciliation, and transparent presentation of information that is typically scattered across agencies, reports, studies, and databases, bringing the major components of the Great Salt Lake water ledger together in a single transparent, connected, and reproducible framework.
What this site is
- A structured accounting framework for evaluating how water moves through the Great Salt Lake system
- A framework designed to support transparent, reproducible, and AI-assisted analysis
- A practical tool for evaluating conservation, leasing, and water projects
- A common accounting and evaluation framework that helps connect information across agencies, studies, and reporting boundaries
What this site is not
- A forecast
- A simulation model
- An advocacy campaign
- A replacement for agency science, monitoring, or regulatory decision-making
- An official state accounting product
How this complements the Strike Team
The Great Salt Lake Strike Team provides the State’s primary synthesis of lake conditions, trends, and scientific understanding. Great Salt Lake Accounting adds a complementary layer focused on accounting structure, reconciliation, reproducibility, and evaluation of potential actions within a consistent framework.
Why this matters
The Great Salt Lake is a terminal lake.
There is no outlet. Water either remains in the lake or leaves through evaporation and direct depletion.
That makes it well suited for applying long-term physical water accounting.
The central question of this site is not whether data exists. It is whether the major components of the Great Salt Lake water ledger can be understood, connected, and reproduced consistently across sources.
When accounting boundaries and assumptions are applied consistently, the major system terms can be reconciled across long-term operating periods.
While better accounting does not guarantee better outcomes, it can improve the odds that limited resources, policy efforts, and conservation investments are directed where they can make the greatest difference.
How to Use This Site
- Home — introduces the framework and links to the two-page Great Salt Lake Accounting Factsheet
- How the Great Salt Lake Works — explains the lake’s physical system and observed behavior
- Great Salt Lake Accounting Methodology — documents the canonical applied method used throughout the site
- Great Salt Lake Accounting Standard (GSLAS) — establishes the framework’s formal scope, terminology, governing principles, and accounting requirements
- Great Salt Lake Water Ledger — reconciles climate, depletions, inflows, and lake response across baseline, rolling, and recent conditions
- Bankability to the Great Salt Lake — evaluates how much of a claimed water benefit produces measurable and durable physical lake accretion
- Great Salt Lake Policy Analysis — applies the ledger and bankability framework to conservation, leasing, and water-project proposals
- Great Salt Lake Dedicated Water Reconciliation — distinguishes legal dedication and DAT accounting from representative annual bankable lake accretion
- Great Salt Lake Accounting Data & Datasets — publishes the source data, metadata, derived calculations, and reconstruction tables used by the framework
- Great Salt Lake Accounting Analyst (GSLAA) — applies the Great Salt Lake Accounting Standard to evaluate water claims, proposed projects, and policy questions
- Great Salt Lake System Conclusions — states the principal findings that follow from the reconciled accounting
- Great Salt Lake Frequently Asked Questions — documents technical questions, detailed derivations, assumptions, and methodological limitations
- Great Salt Lake Accounting Changelog — records substantive revisions to the framework’s methods, figures, terminology, supporting analysis, and site structure
Contact
Questions, corrections, reconciliation feedback, and independent validation results are welcome. To reach the team, email info@gslaccounting.org.
Follow Great Salt Lake Accounting on LinkedIn for framework updates, new datasets, published analyses, and GSLAA developments.
The goal is simple: to improve understanding of the lake system well enough to support clearer, more consistent decisions about its future.
© 2026 GSL Accounting · Version 1.1 (August 2026). Content may be shared or cited with attribution. Built by humans with AI assistance for data validation and drafting, and grounded in public data; analytical judgments and conclusions are the authors’ own. See the Changelog for revision history and archived change notes.