Development of an Environmental Observational Database to Minimize the Gap between Science and Practice

Abstract

The burgeoning human growth, climate change and its variability are putting stress on our finite water resources. To ensure an adequate supply and quality of water for present and future needs under these critical conditions, it is necessary to understand the effects and consequences of the anthropogenic activities and natural variability on these resources. Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries (BIRE) in collaboration with Clarkson University and IBM Corporation are in the stage of implementing River and Estuary Observation Network (REON) that will collect wide varieties of physical, chemical and biological parameters via an integrated network of sensors, robotics and computational technology distributed throughout the Hudson River in New York. Data collected from this large network will help to understand the important processes controlling water quality of the river. These large and diverse datasets are managed through the developed database schema in this study for easy discovery, access and dissemination to the broader user communities. Our developed database is capable to handle both point and gridded observations such as surface current maps captured by the high frequency (HF) radar system. The observational datasets are also stored with the metadata such as location and unit of measurements, calibration coefficients, data qualifying comments, etc. which facilitate easy interpretation of the stored datasets. This database will be interfaced with the point observation data model (ODM) developed by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI), Inc. and thereby, will facilitate interoperability of our data model and will provide greater access to the broader user communities. In addition, the developed data visualization software in this study queries the data into the database and publishes simple color-coded contour plots of measured data for a specified time (e.g., the last 24 hrs, last 7 days, or last 30 days of measurement) on the static Web pages of BIRE's Web portal. This simple illustration of measured data in near real time will make general public aware of the environmental conditions and thereby, promote their participations in implementing policies in conserving our natural water resources.