Hydrologic Information System for the Nation
David R. Maidment
Director
Center for Research
in Water Resources,
University of Texas
at Austin
Consortium of Universities for the
Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc
(CUAHSI)
CUAHSI HydroView Components
• Supported by the
National Science
Foundation
• Develops
cyberinfrastructure and
services for hydrologic
science in US
universities
• Legally independent
organization based in
Washington DC
Hydrologic
Synthesis
Hydrologic
Observatories
Measurement
Technology
Hydrologic
Information
Systems
CUAHSI HIS Partner Institutions
Project Collaborator
CUAHSI Member
CUAHSI has 110 member universities
HIS Goals
• Hydrologic Data Access System – better
access to a large volume of high quality
hydrologic data
• Support for Observatories – synthesizing
hydrologic data for a region
• Advancement of Hydrologic Science – data
modeling and advanced analysis
• Hydrologic Education – better data in the
classroom, basin-focused teaching
CUAHSI Member Survey Results
• Most used
applications are
– Excel
– ArcGIS
Which of the four HIS goals is most
important to you?
Data
Access
– Matlab
• Then come
programming
languages
– Fortran
– C/C++
– Visual Basic
Science Observatories
Education
CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System
A multiscale web portal system for water data and models
1:1,000,000 scale
North American
and Global
1:500,000 scale
United States
1:100,000 scale
River Basin
1:24,000 scale
Watershed
1:1200 scale
River reach
Point scale
A home
Water Data
Water quantity
and quality
Soil water
Meteorology
Remote sensing
Rainfall & Snow
Modeling
Water Data Web Sites
NWISWeb site output
# agency_cd Agency Code
# site_no USGS station number
# dv_dt
date of daily mean streamflow
# dv_va
daily mean streamflow value, in cubic-feet per-second
# dv_cd
daily mean streamflow value qualification code
#
# Sites in this file include:
# USGS 02087500 NEUSE RIVER NEAR CLAYTON, NC
#
agency_cd
site_no dv_dt
dv_va dv_cd
USGS 02087500
2003-09-01
1190
Time series of
USGS 02087500
2003-09-02
649
USGS 02087500
2003-09-03
525
streamflow at a
USGS 02087500
2003-09-04
486
gaging station
USGS 02087500
2003-09-05
733
USGS 02087500
2003-09-06
585
USGS 02087500
2003-09-07
485
USGS 02087500
2003-09-08
463
USGS 02087500
2003-09-09
673
USGS 02087500
2003-09-10
517
USGS 02087500
2003-09-11
454
CUAHSI Hydrologic Data Access
System http://river.sdsc.edu/HDAS
EPA
USGS
NCDC
NASA
NWS
Observatory Data
A common data window for accessing, viewing
and downloading hydrologic information
Observation Stations Map for the US
Ameriflux Towers (NASA & DOE)
NOAA Automated Surface
Observing System
USGS National Water Information System
NOAA Climate Reference Network
NWIS Station Observation Metadata
Describe what has been
measured at this station
Data Sources
NAWQA
Storet
Extract
Ameriflux
NCDC
LTER
NWIS
NCAR
Transform
CUAHSI Web Services
Excel
Visual Basic
C/C++
ArcGIS
Load
Applications
Matlab
Fortran
Access
SAS
Some operational services
Web Page Scraping
http://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/discharge?site_no=02087500&agency_cd=USGS&....
Programmatically construct a
URL string as produced by
manual use of the web page
Parse the resulting ASCII file
CUAHSI Web Services
Web Application: Data Portal
Your application
• Excel, ArcGIS, Matlab
• Fortran, C/C++, Visual Basic
• Hydrologic model
• …………….
Your operating system
• Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac
Internet
Web Services
Library
Simple
Object
Access
Protocol
Transfer of Research Results
• Friday Oct 28: I announced the NWIS web services in a
CUAHSI cyberseminar
• Wednesday Nov 2: Jason Love, from a private firm, RESPEC,
in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, posted on the EPA Basins list
server: “Occasionally one comes across something that is worth sharing;
the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information Systems - Web Services Library for
NWIS is a valuable tool for those of us interested in rapidly acquiring and
processing data from the USGS, e.g., calibrating models and performing
watershed assessments.”
• He provided a tutorial on how to use the services with Matlab
Technology transfer from academia to private sector
to public sector took less than 1 week!
Series and Fields
Features
Series – ordered sequence of numbers
Time series – indexed by time
Frequency series – indexed by frequency
Point, line, area, volume
Discrete space representation
Surfaces
Fields – multidimensional arrays
Continuous space representation
Scalar fields – single value at each location
Vector fields – magnitude and direction
Random fields – probability distribution
North American Regional
Reanalysis of Climate
Precipitation
Evaporation
Variation during the day, July 2003
NetCDF format
mm / 3 hours
Digital Watershed
How can hydrologists integrate observed and modeled data from
various sources into a single description of the environment?
Digital Watershed
Hydrologic
Observation Series
Geospatial
Data
Digital
Watershed
Remote Sensing
Fields
Weather and
Climate Fields
A digital watershed is an overlay of observation series and fields on a
geospatial framework to form a connected database for a hydrologic region
Digital Watershed:
Prototype for the Neuse basin
CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System
Hydrologic Information System
Hydrologic
Observing
System
Hydrologic
Modeling
System
Watershed Hydrovolumes
Hydrovolume
Geovolume is the
portion of a hydrovolume
that contains solid
earth materials
USGS Gaging stations
Water Balance Model
Vertical water fluxes of evaporation, precipitation, and groundwater,
and inflow and outflow in streams, change water storage in watershed
Evaporation
Streamflow
Precipitation
Storage
Streamflow
“How much water do we have? “
George W. Bush during 1996 Texas drought
Groundwater recharge
Water Balancing Model
Fields
Series
Geospatial
Water OneStop
• Like Geospatial OneStop, we need a “Water
OneStop” – a common window for water data and
models
Federal
State
Local
Academic
• Advancement of water science is critically
dependent on integration of water information