Type: Presentations
Categories:
The water quality movement needs pipelines for people to connect, and data to be shared. In this webinar, the Commons presented its advancements in connecting people through the WDC Mainstem Network and sharing data through the Water Reporter API.
Type: Blogs
Categories: Blog
In California, as in the rest of the country, FHABs are on the rise. In 2020, the California Water Board’s Freshwater and Estuarine Harmful Algal Bloom Program estimated that there were roughly 370 reports for FHABs in California. In 2021, that number doubled to roughly 600. As this year’s FHABs season comes to a close, we will likely see that number continue to rise. The key factors responsible for the rise are higher summer temperatures and more severe droughts brought on by climate change as well as increased nutrient levels due in part to run-off from farms and urban areas as well as discharges from wastewater treatment plants. In addition to implementing strategies to combat FHABs, the California State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) has partnered with The Commons and the Nicholas Institute Water Policy Program to develop a robust FHAB monitoring and notification system to warn the public about and better track FHABs as they occur.
Type: Presentations
Categories: Educational Materials, Technical
With the passage of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act in 2018, the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched a new program to provide a larger and more reliable funding stream for pre-disaster mitigation – the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (“BRIC”) Program. In this webinar, Scott Baldwin, Senior Mitigation Manager in Hagerty Consulting’s Recovery Division, discussed the structure of the BRIC program and how communities are beginning to use these funds to prepare for future natural disasters, including droughts.
Type: Documents
Categories: Technical
The Internet of Water Drinking Water Rates Survey is an ingestion tool for drinking water rates. With this tool, we can begin to create a centralized, public database to make rates data easier to find, access, and use in a standardized format.
Type: Blogs
Categories: Blog, IoW General Information, Technical
Internet of Water (IoW) Data Hubs allow one or more users to publish a variety of water data from disparate sources in one place. IoW Data Hubs can be organized by theme or geography and follow IoW Principles.1 They ensure that data and metadata from these disparate sources are standardized before they are published so that they can be seamlessly found and used together. IoW Data Hubs, together with the data discovery tool Geoconnex, are the underlying architecture that makes an internet of water possible.
Type: How-To's, Reports
Categories: Educational Materials, Technical
The guidance provided in this document is designed to address a critical barrier to understanding and effectively managing surface and groundwater (SWGW) interactions in Texas: legacy data and legacy systems. Data held in legacy systems are difficult to find, access, and integrate with other data, and because of this, these data are rarely used in decision-making processes. Improving the findability and accessibility of legacy data is a foundational step in improving water management decisions about SWGW interactions in Texas. However, this same guidance can be applied to address challenges with legacy data and systems for a variety of other applications.
Type: How-To's, Reports
Categories: Educational Materials, Technical
In 2018, water experts and stakeholders in Texas came together to take the first steps toward water data modernization at a workshop at the University of Texas in Austin. The goal of the workshop was to develop a vision for “an ideal water data system for Texas.” The system envisioned in that workshop was the jumping-off point for a collaborative project between the Internet of Water (IoW) and the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) to develop the Texas Water Data Hub. This data hub will give data users easy access to many different types of standardized water data in one place. The hub will support real-time decision-making, enable the identification of opportunities to improve water security and provide decision-makers with a more complete picture of the water cycle in Texas.
As part of this project, the IoW has developed the following best practices and recommendations to support the development of the Texas Water Data Hub. While this document was developed for the Texas Water Data Hub it is broadly applicable and can be used to support the development of other hubs in the future.
Type: How-To's, Reports
Categories: Educational Materials, Technical
The developing Texas Water Data Hub represents a first step in realizing the vision for “an ideal water data system for Texas” that allows those tackling water problems timely access to relevant data about water in Texas. The Internet of Water (IoW) shares a similar vision but is applied across the United States. As such, the collaborative project between the IoW and the TWDB lays the groundwork for the Texas Water Data Hub to interconnect with the broader internet of water, including the water data systems of federal agencies and neighboring states.
Currently, the Texas Water Data Hub provides an online location where metadata regarding many water datasets can be searched, directing users to where data of interest can be accessed. As part of this project, the IoW has developed the following implementation plan for the continued development of Texas Water Data Hub capabilities that will serve to make its data findable, accessible, and interoperable with data from other hubs within the internet of water. While this document was developed for the Texas Water Data Hub it is broadly applicable and can be used to support the development of other hubs in the future.
Type: Presentations
Categories: Technical
The Open Geospatial Consortium’s family of API standards are helping make geospatial data on the web more accessible and interoperable. This presentation introduces pygeoapi – a Python server implementation of OGC’s standards. Kyle Onda, from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Center for Geospatial Solutions, walks through how to set up an API endpoint and discusses several ideas for how to use this flexible, open-source API framework for water data applications.
Type: Documents, Reports
Categories: Policy Documents
Only two states, New Mexico and California, have existing water data legislation: New Mexico’s 2019 Water Data Act and California’s 2016 Open and Transparent Water Data Act. Oregon’s legislature also passed funding packages in 2021 for its water agencies to design a new integrated water data portal. This policy brief compares processes, outcomes, and costs associated with the legislation and funding for water data initiatives in New Mexico, California, and Oregon.