Water Features

It's important to be able to share data in ways that are easy for scientists and water professionals to analyze and for developers to use to make tools and communication materials. In this blog, Kyle Onda describes practices that the Internet of Water Initiative at the Lincoln Institute's Center for Geospatial Solutions recommends for sharing geospatial vector data.

The Colorado River Basin is in a historic drought. Many basin states are facing increasing variability in precipitation and water needs and infrastructure are more complex than ever. Given these challenges, water budgeting is also more complex. To promote transparency and collaboration, the Nicholas Institute Water Policy Program developed the Water Budget Navigator.

Water data are collected by a variety of public agencies, each with its own data standards, formats, and sharing protocols. This fragmentation makes it difficult for data users to access the data they need. In 2021, The Nicholas Institute Water Policy Program completed a Technology Adoption Research Project to learn more about data management at public agencies.

Through our start-up period, we learned that the strength of the IoW is its capacity to unite independent organizations around the common goal of modernizing water data infrastructure. Now, as we enter our growth phase, we are scaling up from a project of the Nicholas Institute to a coalition of organizations working with government partners to enact the IoW vision.

The work to modernize water data infrastructure often goes on under the radar as part of the tireless regular operations of public agencies. But over the past few years, often in response to drought, several western state legislatures have devoted attention and funding to the issue. Recently, Oregon became the latest state to write new policy around water data.

The Western US is experiencing unprecedented droughts while its population continues to grow. This puts pressure on water management systems and increases the need for regional data analyses. In 2011, the Western States Water Council launched the Water Data Exchange (WaDE) to help member states share data to enable multi-state analyses and inform regional planning.