Modernizing operations at the Water Survey of
Canada : From field technologies to data
production
André Bouchard, David Hutchinson, Brian
Pessah, Jeff Woodward, Paul Campbell
A/manager, Hydrologie et Écohydraulique
Service Météorologique du Canada
CWRA conference, Hamilton (ON), June 2014
Summary
• The business of the Water Survey of Canada (WSC)
• Where we were and where we are
– Field technologies
– Office technologies (data production and delivery)
• Looking to the future
– In the field
– In the office
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About the Water Survey of Canada
• Started in 1908, with a federal government allocation of
$10,000
– “The first appropriation made by Parliament for hydrographic work was in
1908… …. as this vote was not available until the season was too far
advanced, only a part of it was used in purchasing equipment in 1909”
– “In Organizing the Hydrographic Surveys, it was realized with the funds
available, it would be impossible to make complete investigations of the
whole water supply”
• First published data :“Report of Progress
of Streamflow for Calendar Year, 1909”
by P.M. Sauder, Chief Hydrographer
• Spent two years in Montana with USGS
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About the WSC
• Currently, WSC is the major operator in a national
network of some 2650 stations, operated through costsharing agreements between the federal government
and the 10 provinces and 3 territories
• WSC has 28 offices nationally, ranging from 1 person
offices to some with 25+
• A total of 220 staff, including technologists, engineers,
scientists, and management
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Offices across the country
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Where we were : field technologies
• For almost all of the past 100 years, our primary velocity measurement instrument has been
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mechanical current meters – the Price AA and the Pygmy meter – and all of our performance
standards, procedures, methodologies have been based on that technology and its known
limitations, and safety hazards.
Related processes and tools were essentially manual & paper based.
At the station level, technologies such as paper-based recorders were common, we made
regular use of “observers”, data transmission was not automated and operation of the
network was centered around an annual publication process.
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History of HydroAcoustics at WSC
• In the 1980’s : AFFRA systems
• In late 1980’s/early 1990’s, WSC joined the USGS
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in investigating the use of acoustic Doppler
technology in riverine environments
Early results showed great potential
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Portable, could be used in many streams, drastically
reduced the time to obtain a measurement, could
reduce operational costs related to obtaining a
measurement and could mitigate health and safety
issues
• But they were large physically, and expensive
–
WSC bought its first Broadband ADCPs in 1994, for ~ $80K each
• Early uses included:
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Special surveys of the St. Lawrence River to calibrate
hydrodynamic models, and to characterize the tidal
cycle at Quebec City through measurements done
every ½ hour, which could not be done with
traditional technology
Flow patterns and bathymetric surveys in northern
rivers
Flow patterns past a beach in a river bay to determine
the daily health of the beach
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Moved from point mmts to…
• Price AA - 20 panels and 1 or 2 velocity
measurements by panel
• With ADCPs, given the right conditions…
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Evolution of hydroacoustic use
Non-Moving
Parts Society
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Where Are We Today?
• WSC has accepted for
operational use:
– ADCP’s TRDI (Rio Grande,
RiverRay, StreamPro)
SonTek (M9, S5 with interim
procedures)
– Sontek Flowtrackers
– OceanScience tethered and
remote control boats
– Hornet remote control bank
operated cableways
– Various GPS systems for
positioning
– Various ship-to-shore
telecommunication systems
– Moving boat and sectionby-section software
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Future considerations (1)
• Enhancement of instrument functionality and application
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Shallower streams, wading, moving boat vs in-situ (ADVM), reduction in size
• Modernization of software
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Section-by-section, QA/QC of results
Ensure proper data management
• Transmission of data from instrument to computer
• Determination of position of instrument, especially related to water’s edge
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– GPS, range finders
– Tethered boats, remote control boats, remote control cableways, pitch & roll
impacts
Providing manufacturer’s feedback and improving procedures for auto-adapting
ADCPs (RiverRay, M9)
Development & documentation of new standards, techniques, operating
procedures, training
– Training - Instrument operation, theory of acoustic doppler, accreditation
– Assess & define operational limitations (velocity, turbulence, suspended
sediment)
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Future considerations (2)
• Moving bed conditions
• Deployment platforms
• Data integrity between traditional and hydroacoustic technologies
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Impact of new technologies on product quality
• Improving application under ice
• Dealing with sediment transport
• Integrating uncertainty into our vocabulary
– Use of flotillas
– Analysis of existing measurements
– Great interest internationally (WMO-Chy)
• Optimization of configuration as a function of stream settings
• Looking technological improvements but concern over the instruments becoming a
“black box”
• Re-appropriating the calculation of Q
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Technologies at the station
• From chart recorders and manual obs to pressure
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transducers and shaft encoders with digital loggers and RT
transmission.
Field computers to gather field data and to download logger
data.
Real-time data transmission (landline, GOES, radio).
Use of smartphones to transmit information from the field to
the office and to clients.
Extending the parameter suite to include water temps.
– Assessing requirements (universities involved)
• Cameras to assess conditions at sites (ice).
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Office technologies
• Initially : Manual processing of data from charts and
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observations and publication in an annual paper report
Then manual digitizing of data from charts and processing by
way of a mainframe with @WSC software
– Still an annual publication in both paper and then digital forms
• Then on to full digital processing
– New Leaf to acquire data
– Compumod for data production
– Hydat and Hydex for data dissemination
• The advent of real-time
– Moving to automated continuous data publication
– Hydrometric Workstation software (Aquarius)
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Our previous system (1995 – 2011)
• Was a strong innovation back in the mid-1990s
• By the late 2000s however
– Architecture – 32 unconnected servers.
– Aging technology
▪ Database
▪ Interface
– Conflicts with other software updates on Windows
– Basically adapted to an annual data production process
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Started with a concept
• Concept paper led the way
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for a full blown design
session
Followed by an assessment of
the environment (build or
buy)
Decision to buy with the
possibility to customize
RFP in late 2000’s
National Implementation
now complete
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User perspective : 2 Interfaces
Whiteboard – Technical
Interface – analysis and
small scale dev work
Springboard – web based
day to day work
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Modern System Architecture
From 32 unconnected servers in each office to…
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Other Developments
• Water Office
• HFC – modern software for field computers
• Upcoming data mart to modernize the data dissemination end of
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things (use of web services)
Moving to standard data exchange formats such as WaterML 2.0
North America Water Watch
Impact of space based technologies (SWOT)
Importance of site characterization as related to the application of
available technologies
Radar to estimate surface velocities
Automated QA/QC routines for real-time data
Management of site visit information with pictures and video
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The Future
• We’re now able to consider the eventual implementation of some
of the original concepts such as
– Multiple estimators of discharge.
– Better connections between monitoring and modelling (feedback loop
between the two).
– Better tools to undertand what is actually going on at the sites in terms
of physics.
▪ Dealing with backwater, ice, etc.
– Extending the network by adding virtual sites ?
• To try and tackle this, we’re working to set up a dev team
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Define a process to move from dev to ops (+ dev environment)
How to manage time series from external modelling systems
How to manage the models themselves
Develop standards and procedures to ensure data quality
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An example
Sainte-Anne Channel
Vaudreuil Channel
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The solution
Scripting toolbox
Whiteboard
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How far can we take it ?
What approval Levels?
How is this approved?
How is this run?
Who writes this?
Where exactly is this instance
of whiteboard run? One
“national instance” or locally?
Production Environment
Is there a difference
between these data?
Time Series
“Rating Curve” data
Time Series
3rd Party “Modelled” data
Script
Whtieboard Scripts
Modeled Data
Aquarius Production
Server & Database
Time Series
3rd Party “Modelled” data
3rd Party Modeled Data
Third Party Models
3rd Party Supplemental Data
How do we decide what data
this is?
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Questions ?
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