A SCIENCE AND EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN CUAHSI AND NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY TO PROVIDE ADVANCED ACCESS TO SCIENTIFIC DATA

The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI), through its Hydrologic Information Systems project has developed Water Data Services (WDS) to fundamentally change the way in which scientists and educators discover and utilize a broad range of water resources data. The goal of the project is to develop a suite of software tools to enable improved access to environmental data for analysis and testing hypotheses. One of the components of the system includes WaterOneFlow, a set of query commands for accessing data through web services and the transmission of data from multiple sources back to the user in a standardized format known as WaterML, an extensible markup language. The return of the data in a single (xml) format means that the data can be readily incorporated into a wide variety of existing applications. A relationship between CUAHSI scientists and education specialists at Northwestern University was formed through a National Science Foundation grant. Through this partnership, CUAHSI scientists reach a broad network of teachers and students with their data. Northwestern University has leveraged the technology advances of the CUAHSI HIS and built an access portal directly into My World GIS^TM, a desktop GIS software used in educational environments. This data access is supported by a rich set of curriculum materials and teacher training opportunities provided by Northwestern to increase rates of teacher adoption. CUAHIS WDS currently provides access to 37 water data sources including: USGS; NWIS; EPA Storet; National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) as well as several state and regional environmental research and monitoring programs. Together these components support the confederation of water data from disparate sources into a distributed database that appears seamless to the user.