Modernized Standards and Tools for Sharing and Integrating Real time Hydrologic Observations Data

Future iterations of the National Water Model (NWM) will need to include local-scale data and information to improve forecasts and results in different areas of the U.S. Local-scale data may include streamflow, water level, and eventually water quality observations from in situ monitoring sites. While the United States Geological Survey (USGS) operates an operational network of real-time streamflow gages via the National Water Information System (NWIS)/Water Data for the Nation, NextGen modeling efforts could benefit from a much larger observations network – e.g., data from states, public utilities, water management agencies, researchers, watershed groups, and others. USGS does not support addition of these types of data to NWIS, and no current system allows organizations operating monitoring sites to contribute data into an integrated, national network of real-time monitoring sites that could augment USGS’ real-time streamflow gages. The need for water data is analogous to the need that was addressed by programs created by the National Weather Service (NWS) to standardize access to national networks of weather stations (e.g., the NWS Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) that augments the Automated Surface/Weather Observing Systems with data from over 4,300 observing sites contributed by COOP participants). This project is developing data submission, integration, management, curation, and access capabilities as cyberinfrastructure that will enable creation of a national-scale, operational Hydrological Information System (HIS) for cooperator contributed hydrologic data. Using software developed by this project, data contributors will have the ability to stream hydrologic observations from operational monitoring sites into the HIS. CIROH will operate the HIS to curate and standardize access to all contributed data via standardized web services and data formats. NOAA and other federal agencies will receive operational benefit by engaging the broad water science community in the process of data sharing and enhancement, resulting in a much larger network of available streamflow and potentially other data for modeling and analysis purposes. Data contributors will benefit through enhanced software and systems for sensor data management and from the ability to improve localized model predictions by providing local observational data.

The overall goals of this subproject are to synthesize approaches for hydrologic data sharing, access, and integration; identify needs and functionality gaps; and advance ability to integrate hydrologic data from many sources in an operational HIS. This project aims to improve the amount of operational hydrologic data available to support water modeling and prediction, and to advance state of the practice tools for managing and sharing time series of hydrologic observations available to producers and users of data and models. This project is organized around three objectives:

Objective 1: Synthesize the current state of practice and existing standards and approaches for sharing, delivering, and integrating operational hydrologic time series observations.
Objective 2: Advance the architectural design for a modernized, national-scale, operational HIS.
Objective 3: Leverage existing cyberinfrastructure to build the core components of the operational HIS.