Water Features

The USGS is the world's largest provider of in situ water data and supports the backbone systems for authoritative US water data. And yet, much of the country’s core water resources data are not managed by USGS. The Center for Geospatial Solutions is helping the USGS to address this gap by developing a widely accessible, comprehensive water data commons.

A culture of modern data management has begun to take hold in the water management community. Leaders in state agencies across the country are beginning to recognize that better water data infrastructure helps them to be more effective and efficient in managing their water resources. The path to reach this goal, however, is still often unclear.

We envision the Oregon Water Data Portal (OWDP) as a single point of access on the Internet, where people can find data about Oregon’s water – from how much of it there is in certain regions, to how clean it is, how it is transported to communities, to how much is needed to support fish, wildlife, and habitat.

The Water Hub is a program of Climate Nexus that provides communications help to water advocates and experts, uplifts traditionally marginalized voices, and adds capacity to groups that have historically been under-resourced. In this blog, we interview Nicole Lampe, managing director of the Water Hub, about what she learned from their National Voter Poll on Water.

Monitor My Watershed is a water quality data sharing portal that enables users to continuously stream real-time in-situ sensor data and visualize that data through a web application. This free and open-source platform has powerful advantages for researchers, students, community scientists, and more.

In California, as in the rest of the country, Freshwater Harmful Algal Blooms are on the rise.  The CA State Water Board has partnered with The Commons and the Nicholas Institute to develop a robust FHAB monitoring and notification system to warn the public about and better track FHABs as they occur.