HYDROWEB: A DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR THE GEOTHERMAL PROJECT AT BALL STATE UNIVERSITY

Numerous hydrological data have been collected from the continuous monitoring of the Ball State University’s geothermal field and become an important asset that affords many potential research opportunities for faculty and students at Ball State. HydroWeb was thus developed to help investigators systematically collect, store, manage, and visualize these hydrological data in both spatial and temporal domains.

HydroWeb is a web system designed to manage the hydro-data collected from monitoring wells. For new users, one needs to register to the system to acquire an id and password combination for future access. After logged into the system, a web interface is presented to upload hydro-data including date, field name, well name, well type, depth to water level, temperature at water level, conductivity at water level, well depth, temperature at well depth, conductivity at well depth, purged or not, purged depth, and identification of the data collector. The interface will also validate the data formats and accuracies before saving them into a relational database. A user can then use the web system to manage the data online with functions such as record deletion and revision. Many user-friendly browsing functions are provided such as searching and sorting based on date, field name, well name, and tester name. The system also provides 2-D data visualization to facilitate hydro-data analysis. The well locations are also available online via Google Maps.