CUAHSI
Hydrologic Information System
Project co-PI
Collaborator

CUAHSI
Hydrologic Information Systems
Additional
Hypotheses
Hydrologic
Synthesis
Data
Hypotheses
Multi-Disciplinary
Teams
Community
Support
Needs
Hydrologic
Observatories
Data
Measurement
Technology
Tools Models Hydrologic
Information
Systems
Community
Support
Technological
Advances
Exogenous Data

Environmental
Cyberinfrastructure
• Part of NSF
Cyberinfrastructure program
• CUAHSI Hydrologic
Information Systems is one of several pilot projects –
CUAHSI, CLEANER, ORION,
NEON, GEON, …..

• Data Services for Hydrologists – get me the data I want quickly and painlessly
• Support for Observatories – data structure for Digital Watersheds
• Advancement of Hydrologic Science – flux coupler, HydroObjects
• Hydrologic Education – how to get data into the classroom

Hydrologic
Observation
Data
(Relational database or delimited ascii)
Digital
Watershed
Geospatial
Data
(GIS)
Remote Sensing
Data
(EOS-HDF)
Weather and Climate
Data
(NetCDF)

• HIS User
Assessment
• Hydrology Data
Portal
• Digital Watershed
• Hydrologic Analysis

• HIS User
Assessment
• Hydrology Data
Portal
• Digital Watershed
• Hydrologic Analysis

• First survey done for HIS White Paper
(2003)
• HIS Symposium in March – 4 institutional surveys and a survey of participants
• CUAHSI Web Surveyor – developed by
David Tarboton and Christina Bandaragoda
(75 responses from 38 institutions)
• Summary paper circulated by email yesterday

Please rank these four HIS service categories for helping you.
Conclusion: Data services are the highest priority

Which operating systems do you use for your research? If you use more than one operating system, select all that apply.

Please indicate one dataset that you believe would most benefit from increased ease of access through a
Hydrologic Information System (HIS).
EPA STORET Water Quality
USGS Streamflow
Remote Sensing data (e.g. LANDSAT, GOES, AVHRR)
NEXRAD Radar Precipitation not applicable to my research
National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA)
National Land Cover dataset (NLCD)
USGS Groundwater levels
Soils Data (STATSGO/SSURGO)
NCDC Precipitation
Climate Model Reanalysis data (e.g. NARR)
PRISM Precipitation data
NCDC Pan Evaporation
USGS National Geology data
National Hydrography Dataset
National Elevation Dataset and derivatives (EDNA)
SNOTEL
Conclusion: EPA
STORET Water
Quality, Streamflow and Remote Sensing
Data are perceived to be able to benefit from improved access.
I am surprised USGS streamflow is up there. Is this an indication of importance over difficulty?
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%

How we use software
(Austin Symposium)
Excel
A rcGIS/A rcView
FORTRA N
C/C++
Java
M S A ccess
Visual B asic
M atlab
SQL/Server
M o dflo w
1 =Never use
4.0
3.9
3.3
3.2
2 =do no t rely o n
2.6
2.7
2.5
2.4
2.4
2.3
3 =Use o ccasio nally 4 =Use o ften 5 = find indispensable

Which of the following data analysis difficulties are most important for HIS to address?
Conclusion: High priorities are:
- Data formats
- Metadata
- Irregular time steps

How we use software (Web
Surveyor)
• Programming (85% of respondents): Fortran,
C/C++, Visual Basic
• Data Management (93%): Excel, MS Access
• GIS (93%): ArcGIS
• Mathematics/Statistics (98%): Excel, Matlab,
SAS, variety of other systems
• Hydrologic models (80%): Modflow, HEC models
• A general, simple, standard, and open interface that could connect with many systems is the only way to accommodate all these

• HIS User
Assessment
• Hydrology Data
Portal
• Digital Watershed
• Hydrologic Analysis

Hydrologic Observations Data
Model
Relationships
Review conducted by David Tarboton with
22 responses – redesign of this model is now being done

Data Access and Viewing System in ArcMap

Plot from the Hydrology Data Portal
Produced using a CUAHSI Hydrology Web Service : getDailyStreamflowChart

CUAHSI Hydrology Web Services for NWIS http://water.sdsc.edu/HydrologicTimeSeries/NWIS.asmx

Documentation: getDailyStreamflowChart https://webspace.utexas.edu/jgoodall/HydrologicTimeSeriesWebServices.htm

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

• HIS User
Assessment
• Hydrology Data
Portal
• Digital Watershed
• Hydrologic Analysis

1.
Variety of data sources, formats, and data models used in hydrologic sciences
2.
Size and scale of data sources – observation databases, terrain models,
NEXRAD, river networks, etc.
3.
Disconnection between geospatial and temporal information systems

How can hydrologists integrate observed and modeled data from various sources into a single description of the environment?

Hydrologic
Observation
Data
Geospatial
Data
(GIS)
(Relational database or delimited ascii)
Digital
Watershed
Remote Sensing
Data
(EOS-HDF)
Weather and Climate
Data
(NetCDF)
A digital watershed is a synthesis of hydrologic observation data, geospatial data, remote sensing data and weather and climate data into a connected database for a hydrologic region

Digital Watershed:
An implementation of the CUAHSI Hydrologic Data
Model for a particular region
Created first for the Neuse basin

• Daily precipitation data from NCDC gages
• Nexrad daily rainfall rasters
• Land surface – atmosphere fluxes from North American
Regional Reanalysis of climate

• Streamflow, water quality hydrologic observational data
• GIS: River network, water bodies, watersheds, monitoring points
• Land cover, soils,
• MODIS remote sensing
(Praveen Kumar)
MODIS
Terrain and Land Cover

ArcIMS Web Server displaying data compiled in Neuse HO Planning Study

Neuse Basin: Coastal aquifer system
Section line
Beaufort Aquifer
* From USGS, Water Resources Data Report of North Carolina for WY 2002

Geovolumes of hydrogeologic units from US Geological survey (GMS)

Geovolume
Each cell in the 2D representation is transformed into a 3D object
Geovolume with model cells

The Demands
Numerical Models
Prediction
HSPF
MM5
Air-Q
NCDC
METADATA
USGS
NWIS
NCEP
NWS
Data Centers
NGDC
Drexel University, College of Engineering
Sensor Arrays
Individual
Samples
Page 3

Page 21
Hydrologic Metadata
Upper Hydrologic Ontology
ISO 19108 Temporal Objects
Many More
ARCHydro
Many More
USGS Hydrologic Unit Code ISO 19115 Geospatial
ISO 19103 Units/Conversion
Hydrologic Processes
Sedimentation
Michael Piasecki is our expert in this subject!
Drexel University, College of Engineering
Ontology Examples
Many More
Many More

• HIS User
Assessment
• Hydrology Data
Portal
• Digital Watershed
• Hydrologic analysis

Hydrologic
Process Modeling
Statistics and
Hypothesis Testing
Visualization
Digital
Watershed
Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

Praveen Kumar is our expert on this subject!
Data
Driven
Discovery
Tools

Data to Knowledge
Jan
Time, T
D
Variables, V
Space, L
Time Series Analysis
D
Geostatistics
Multivariate analysis
Feb
4-D
Data
Model
Image to Knowledge
Data
Files

Hydrologic Fluxes and Flows
Digital Watershed
(Atmospheric, surface and subsurface water)
We want to do water, mass, energy and water balances

Take a watershed and extrude it vertically into the atmosphere and subsurface
A hydrovolume is “a volume in space through which water, energy and mass flow, are stored internally, and transformed ”

Hydrovolume
USGS Gaging stations
Geovolume is the portion of a hydrovolume that contains solid earth materials

Atmospheric science – hydrology
• Weather and climate fields are the drivers – continuous in space and time across the nation
• Local watersheds are the reactors – each behaving according to its location and characteristics

• A defined geospatial coordinate system for
(x,y,z)
• A defined time coordinate system
(UTC, Eastern
Standard Time, ….)
• A set of variables, V
• Data values v(x,y,z,t)
Variables, V
Time, t v – data values
Data Cube
Space
(x,y,z)

Continuous Space-Time Model --
NetCDF
Time, T
Coordinate dimensions
{X}
D
Variables, V
Space, L
Variable dimensions
{Y}

Discrete Space-Time Data Model
Time, TSDateTime
Variables, TSTypeID
TSValue
Space, FeatureID

Time Series
Properties
(Type)
Value
A Value-Time array
Shape
A time series that knows what geographic feature it describes and what type of time series it is
Time

Define the fluxes and flows associated with each hydrovolume
Evaporation
Precipitation
Streamflow
Groundwater recharge

Coupling Table – Connects fluxes and flows with hydrovolumes
Hydrovolume object
Coupling
FeatureID
SourceSinkID
TSTypeID
Direction
A geospatial time series object
A geospatial time series object vector
FeatureID SourceSinkID TSTypeID Direction
1 02092500 1 -1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
3
4
1
-1
1
TSTypeID
1
2
3
4
Variable
Daily Streamflow
Daily Precipitation
Daily Evaporation
Daily Subsurface Recharge

P, E, R Q

Net Inflow and Cumulative Storage
Monthly water balance for one watershed hydrovolume for 2001
Storage
Net Inflow
This water balance does not close very well – we need better data!

Custom Models
Web Services
ArcGIS
Excel
Matlab
HydroObjects
API
Remote and local
Data sources
Backbone of a Hydrologic Information System

• Hydrology Data Portal is a common data window on point observation data sources
• CUAHSI web services library supports the data portal and local applications on your computer In production
• Digital watershed is a data fusion of point observations, GIS, remote sensing and weather and climate grids In development
• HydroObjects are custom-built to function over the Digital Watershed
In research

• Neuse workshop – 11-13 July, 2005, to solidify the conceptual model and science applications of the Neuse Digital
Watershed and HydroObjects
• Expansion of the Hydrology Data Portal and Hydrology Web Services Library
• Building Digital Watersheds with HO teams – lets get on with it!