Data Management Updates Kristen Gunthardt, EPA OW Nate Booth, USGS CIDA NWQMC February 1, 2010

Topics Water Quality Data Exchange Portal Update Towards a Multidisciplinary Data Sharing FRamework

What is WQX? WQX defines the framework by which EPA compiles water quality monitoring data in the STORET Data Warehouse WQX is governed by a standardized format, so all data must comply with this format The WQX format allows anybody to share data regardless of what the original source of the data was WQX provides a common suite of data elements that we can use to share data across sources – NWIS Water Quality and STORET Warehouse data

Today’s Status 37 State agencies have successfully flowed data via WQX or WQX Web since 2007 (LINK) Over 80 Tribal organizations have successfully flowed data via WQX or WQX Web since 2007 Other states and tribes continue to come on-line, and/or have been funded through EPA Exchange Network grant dollars to transition to WQX STORET Helpdesk assistance, grant funding, as well as individual consultation and training facilitate the transition to WQX EPA Office of Water and Office of Environmental Information continue to partner to provide tools for all data providers

1960’s1970’s1980’s1990’s2000’s Legacy STORET Data Integration Timeline Data Integration Timeline WATSTORE Modern STORET NWIS NWISWeb QW Web Services STORET warehouse Data copied

U.S. Water Data Portal Project: Integrating Water Information The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) have enhanced water quality monitoring data access Common data standards and web services improve on the historical approach Water managers and the public will access integrated water quality monitoring data from multiple agencies through a singular data portal What is a web service? Computer-to-computer data sharing Uses Input parameters and outputs XML Can be used in multiple ways by many applications USGS EPA Internet (XML) For more information, please visit: and

9 Components of Longer Term Data Integration Other Data Partners Integrated water quality monitoring data is made possible through: Web services technology Standardized metadata Compatible search parameters Common vocabularies

Gulf of Maine+ Sharing a Variety of Data for the Northeast Coastal and Ocean Data Partnership Learn more at

Further Integration –Common spatial frameworks (NHD) –Common analytical method metadata (NEMI) Improve the federated dataset A single web portal for water-quality data –Unified downloads Future Work

USGS / USEPA Water-Quality Data Exchange Lower Potomac Hydrologic Unit USGS, 169 EPA stream sites USGSEPA 150M water quality observations over last 100 yrs

Towards an International Multidisciplinary Water Data Sharing Framework A common information model for the entire hydrologic cycle Data Integration Framework Open Geospatial Consortium Hydrology Domain Working Group National and International partners

Credit: David J. Schwab

Helping the World to Communicate Geographically Hydrology Domain Working Group A joint working group of the OGC and WMO constituted as an OGC Domain Working Group. Brings together interested parties to develop and promote the technology for greatly improving the way in which water information is described and shared. Co-chaired by representatives nominated by the OGC TC and the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) Commission for Hydrology (CHy). Current Co-Chairs: Ilya Zaslavsky (SDSC), Ulrich Looser (GRDC) and David Lemon (CSIRO) > 50 Participants, > 30 Organisations Courtesy: David Lemon, CSIRO

Meets every 3 months Teleconferences most weeks WaterML Version 2 standard being proposed Vote for adoption 3-6 months later Jointly with World Meteorological Organization Evolving WaterML into an International Standard November 2009

CUAHSI is a consortium representing 125 US universities Supported by the National Science Foundation Earth Science Division Advances hydrologic science in nation’s universities Includes a Hydrologic Information System project Courtesy: David Maidment

What have we learned? We have custom-built a very large scale services- oriented architecture and a sophisticated user interface to it – A much simpler and more general pattern has emerged based on existing Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) information exchange standards and extensions to them We have exposed a very large volume of information – It needs to be carefully organized to be most useful 19 Courtesy: David Maidment

Open Geospatial Consortium Web Service Standards Map Services Web Map Service (WMS) Web Feature Service (WFS) Web Coverage Service (WCS) Catalog Services for the Web (CS/W) Observation Services Observations and Measurements Model Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) Sensor Observation Service (SOS) These standards have been developed over the past 10 years …. …. by 400 companies and agencies working within the OGC 20

Towards an International Multidisciplinary Water Data Sharing Framework Open Geospatial Consortium Hydrology Domain Working Group Interoperability Experiments – Academic, Government, Industry – Groundwater – Surface Water – Flood Forecasting – Met/Oceans

Groundwater Data Exchange Experiment  Test and enhance OGC standards for water observations  Exchange groundwater well characteristics and water levels with Canada  Start with Lake Superior Basin

Groundwater Data Portal

Surface Water Interoperability Experiment (3 use cases)  Cross border – share streamflow data across regional boundaries (Europe)  Forecasting (Deltares, USGS, NOAA)– share streamflow and rating curve for flood forecasting  Global Runoff (Kisters) – Real-time calculations of streamflow volume to oceans

Surface Water Interoperability Experiment – USGS gages ACWI SOH, IWRSS

Courtesy: Kelli Page, GLOS Met / Oceans

Credit: David J. Schwab

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative – GLOS backbone · Support cross- agency and cross- discipline data analysis and modeling through a data standards- based virtual observatory

Nested watershed models and sensors · Hierarchy of watershed water-quality models: · SPARROW (spatial variability, annual time-step) · HSPF (daily time step) – 2 ag watersheds, 1 on LM · Sensor derived surrogates (~real-time) – 30 sites / 8 on LM · Common basin-wide hydrologic model that can test climate change scenarios · Evolve data standards to couple to in-lake models and observations

U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey Kristen Gunthardt USEPA Office of Water Thank you Nate Booth, USGS USGS Center for Integrated Data Analytics (CIDA) Ph: