The formal technical standard behind this site's accounting framework
Purpose
The Great Salt Lake Accounting Standard (GSLAS) is a documented, versioned technical standard for physical and analytical water accounting. It establishes a consistent framework for defining system boundaries, reconciling inflows, depletions, evaporation, and storage changes, and evaluating how proposed actions affect the amount of incremental water that physically reaches and remains in Great Salt Lake.
GSLAS separates three distinct layers of analysis: demonstrated Accounting Findings, reasoned Analytical Inference, and values-based Policy Considerations. Keeping these layers separate makes assumptions visible, calculations reproducible, and disagreements traceable to specific evidence, methods, or policy judgments.
This page documents the standard’s status, scope, governing principles, citation, and revision history. The Great Salt Lake Accounting Methodology explains how the standard is implemented for the Great Salt Lake Basin, while the Great Salt Lake Accounting Analyst (GSLAA) applies GSLAS to specific questions, claims, articles, datasets, projects, and policy proposals.
Document Status
Standard: Great Salt Lake Accounting Standard
Abbreviation: GSLAS
Document identifier: GSLAS-1:2026
Edition: First Edition
Publication date: August 2026
Status: Public Review Draft
Operational status: Current governing standard for Great Salt Lake Accounting and GSLAA as of August 2026
Review status: Released for independent technical review; it has not yet completed an external consensus-standard process or journal-administered peer review
Authors: Stuart J. Eyring and Warren H. Peterson
Publisher: Great Salt Lake Accounting Project
Supersedes: None
Download the Standard
The complete First Edition, Public Review Draft is available in PDF and machine-readable Markdown formats:
The PDF is the publication-form edition. The Markdown edition contains the same substantive standard in a format suitable for text analysis, accessibility, and use by GSLAA.
When using or citing the standard, identify the applicable edition and review status so that definitions, assumptions, calculations, and conclusions remain reproducible as GSLAS evolves.
About GSLAS-1:2026
The Great Salt Lake Accounting Standard (GSLAS-1:2026) is the First Edition, Public Review Draft of a technical standard for evaluating physical water systems and related analytical claims. It defines the terminology, accounting relationships, accounting transformations, documentation requirements, and governing principles used by the Great Salt Lake Accounting framework.
GSLAS-1:2026 is currently operational as the governing standard for Great Salt Lake Accounting and GSLAA. Its Public Review Draft designation invites independent technical evaluation while allowing the framework to be applied consistently during the review period.
The Public Review Draft has not been adopted through an accredited consensus-standard process and has not undergone journal-administered peer review. Comments received through independent technical review may result in corrections, clarifications, or revisions. Material changes will be documented and issued under an updated version or edition.
GSLAS provides a disciplined structure for determining what the available physical evidence demonstrates, what must be inferred from that evidence, and which conclusions depend on policy preferences or other value judgments. It is designed to support transparent analysis without requiring agreement on policy outcomes.
Although the standard is implemented here for Great Salt Lake, its distinction between physical accounting, analytical interpretation, and policy judgment can also inform the evaluation of other closed-basin and terminal-lake water systems.
What GSLAS Establishes
GSLAS establishes the terminology, methods, and analytical classifications used to construct and evaluate a physically reconciled water-accounting framework.
Accounting Findings
Accounting Findings are demonstrated results supported by defined system boundaries, public or documented data, explicit assumptions, reproducible calculations, and physical reconciliation. They state what the accounting evidence establishes within the limits of the available observations and methods.
Analytical Inference
Analytical Inference consists of reasoned interpretations built upon Accounting Findings. Inferences may be well supported, but they extend beyond what the physical accounting alone directly demonstrates. GSLAS requires the evidence, assumptions, and reasoning supporting an inference to be identified.
Policy Considerations
Policy Considerations address choices involving priorities, values, legal constraints, institutional responsibilities, risk tolerances, costs, benefits, and tradeoffs. GSLAS treats this layer separately so that policy preferences are not presented as physical accounting conclusions.
Governing Principles
GSLAS is organized around eight governing principles.
1. Physical Accounting
The accounting system must reconcile physically within a defined boundary. Major inflows, depletions, evaporation, storage changes, and other material terms must form a coherent balance.
2. Analytical Transparency
Data sources, definitions, assumptions, transformations, calculations, limitations, and material uncertainties must be visible enough for an informed reviewer to understand how a result was produced.
3. Incremental Lake Accretion
A proposed action is evaluated according to the incremental water it causes to physically reach and remain in Great Salt Lake relative to the applicable baseline, accounting boundary, timing, conveyance, losses, and displacement effects.
4. Analytical Independence
Physical accounting conclusions must be derived independently of desired policy outcomes, institutional preferences, advocacy positions, or predetermined narratives.
5. Explicit Assumptions
Assumptions must be identified rather than embedded invisibly in calculations or conclusions. When results depend materially on an assumption, that dependency must be disclosed.
6. Reproducibility
A technically qualified reviewer should be able to reproduce material calculations from the documented data, definitions, methods, and assumptions.
7. Continuous Improvement
The standard and its implementation may evolve as data quality improves, errors are corrected, and understanding advances. Material revisions must be versioned and documented.
8. Climate Bounds
Climate conditions and uncertainty must be evaluated explicitly and within stated analytical bounds. Climate effects must not be used to obscure, replace, or double-count other physical accounting terms.
Scope of the Standard
GSLAS provides requirements and guidance for:
- Defining the physical and analytical boundaries of a water-accounting system
- Identifying and classifying inflows, depletions, evaporation, and storage changes
- Reconciling observed and derived accounting terms
- Evaluating incremental water deliveries and lake accretion
- Distinguishing gross water quantities from net physical effects
- Identifying baselines, counterfactuals, timing, losses, and displacement
- Documenting data sources, assumptions, transformations, and uncertainty
- Separating Accounting Findings from Analytical Inference and Policy Considerations
- Producing analyses that can be reviewed, reproduced, compared, and revised
GSLAS does not prescribe a preferred policy outcome. It establishes how physical and analytical claims should be classified, supported, and communicated.
Relationship to the Methodology and GSLAA
GSLAS is the normative technical standard. It establishes the controlling definitions, governing principles, accounting requirements, analytical classifications, and documentation expectations.
The Great Salt Lake Accounting Methodology is the applied explanation of how GSLAS is implemented for the Great Salt Lake Basin water ledger, supporting datasets, and published analyses.
The Great Salt Lake Accounting Analyst (GSLAA) is the AI-assisted analytical tool configured to apply GSLAS when evaluating specific questions, claims, articles, datasets, projects, and policy proposals.
If language on this website differs from the current operational edition of GSLAS, the applicable GSLAS requirements govern.
Intended Users
GSLAS is intended for researchers, water professionals, policymakers, journalists, technical reviewers, educators, project proponents, public agencies, organizations, and members of the public who need a transparent framework for evaluating physical water-accounting claims.
Use of GSLAS does not imply endorsement by the Great Salt Lake Accounting Project. Analyses should be evaluated according to their adherence to the standard, the quality of their evidence, and the reproducibility of their calculations.
Suggested Citation
Eyring, S. J., & Peterson, W. H. (2026). Great Salt Lake Accounting Standard (GSLAS-1:2026): A Technical Standard for Physical and Analytical Water Accounting. First Edition, Public Review Draft. Great Salt Lake Accounting Project.
When citing an analysis prepared under GSLAS, identify the specific edition of the standard and any material datasets, assumptions, or methodological modifications used.
Revision and Archival Policy
GSLAS is maintained as a versioned technical standard. Revisions may be issued to correct errors, clarify requirements, incorporate improved data or methods, or address issues identified through independent review and practical application.
To preserve transparency and traceability:
- Every public revision will receive a distinct version or edition identifier.
- Prior versions will remain publicly available.
- Material changes to definitions, assumptions, methods, or requirements will be documented.
- Analyses should identify the GSLAS edition under which they were prepared.
- Corrections and revision notes will be published with the corresponding edition.
- Material comments received during independent technical review, and the authors’ disposition of those comments, will be documented with the reviewed edition or an accompanying review record.
Revision History
First Edition, Public Review Draft — GSLAS-1:2026 — August 2026
Initial public review release of the Great Salt Lake Accounting Standard. Adopted as the current operational standard for Great Salt Lake Accounting and GSLAA pending completion of independent technical review.
Future editions, corrections, review records, and revision notes will be archived on this page.
Explore the Framework
Read the Great Salt Lake Accounting Methodology
Explore the Great Salt Lake Water Ledger
Review Great Salt Lake Policy Analyses
Open the Great Salt Lake Accounting Analyst (GSLAA)
← Methodology | Water Ledger →
© 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.