Natalie Sheh

Aquatic Informatics Expands Municipal Digital Water Portfolio

May 29, 2019 – Strategic Acquisition of Tokay Software Strengthens Aquatic Informatics’ Position as the World’s Largest Water Data Management Company.

Nebraska Department of Natural Resources Partners with Aquatic Informatics to Modernize Their Stream Gaging Tools and Processes

May 16, 2019 – Nebraska DNR Selects AQUARIUS for their continuous water data management.

U.S. Geological Survey Successfully Begins Modernization of the National Water Information System with the Rapid Deployment of AQUARIUS Time-Series Software in the State of Alabama

December 15, 2016 – The next generation of AQUARIUS Time-Series, the world’s most powerful water data management platform, is now live across the Alabama offices of the USGS Lower Mississippi Water Science Center.

Aquatic Informatics Wins Award as One of the Best Places to Work in Canada

March 29, 2016 – Aquatic Informatics has been recognized as one of Canada’s Top Small & Medium Employers for three consecutive years by Mediacorp.

2016 AQUARIUS Impact Award Winners Announced in Celebration of World Water Day

March 22, 2016 – Today on World Water Day, Aquatic Informatics recognizes the outstanding success of three customers, Murrumbidgee Irrigation, the Northern California Power Agency, and the National Parks Service, in using AQUARIUS to create timely, accurate environmental insight.

Aquatic Informatics Recognized Among Fastest Growing Cleantech Leaders

March 4, 2016 – Rocket Builders has named Aquatic Informatics to the 2016 Rocket Cleantech list for its outstanding growth and water software market leadership.

AQUARIUS WebPortal Now Features Configurable Dashboards for Powerful Online Visualization of Environmental Data

February 11, 2016 – New customizable dashboards, heat maps, enhanced charting, and map display options empower users with visually rich environmental intelligence, clear trends, and warnings of critical conditions.

Aquatic Informatics Named to 2015 PROFIT 500 List

September 17, 2015 – Canadian Business and PROFIT have ranked Aquatic Informatics as the 274th fastest growing company in Canada.

Semaphore Solutions Becomes an AQUARIUS Certified Integrator Partner

June 30, 2015 – Aquatic Informatics is pleased to welcome Semaphore as a strategic North American partner for customers requiring customized AQUARIUS software to solve their water resource challenges.

Water monitoring, Hydrology, Water data management software, Rating curve, Stage discharge curve

Three Great Reasons to Update Your Subscription to Hydrology Corner

Dear Readers, Over the past three years Hydrology Corner has grown from a ground breaking blog on hydrology topics, to a multi-author source for cutting edge news, information, and opinions about hydrological best practices. Today, we are announcing an upgrade to our email subscription services to better serve a growing readership. This new system will…

Aquatic Informatics Recognized as a Top 15 CleanTech Achiever

March 12, 2014 – Rocket Builders has named Aquatic Informatics on its 2014 Rocket CleanTech List for the sixth time.

Packed House Leads Aquatic Informatics to Host Second Open House

February 7, 2014 – Over 120 developers attended the 1st Aquatic Informatics open house, leading this cleantech leader to schedule a 2nd open house for February 12.

Aquatic Informatics Wins 2013 EBJ Business Achievement Award

January 21, 2014 – The Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) selected Aquatic Informatics as the winner of the 2013 Business Achievement Award for International Expansion.

Aquatic Informatics Hosts Open House to Hire 20 New Developers

January 20, 2014 – Developers are invited to attend the Aquatic Informatics Open House on February 6, 2014 downtown Vancouver to learn about career options in the clean technology sector.

Aquatic Informatics Releases AQUARIUS 3.4 Making Complex Water Data Management More Simple

December 10, 2013 – With each quarterly release of AQUARIUS, Aquatic Informatics continues to deliver the most elegant and intuitive solution to solve complex environmental data management challenges.

Water News

Community Advice to Young Hydrologists, Part 1

This blog post is a fantastic insight into the minds of the most influential hydrologists in the world today. The question: “WHAT BOOK OR PAPER HAS BEEN MOST INFLUENTIAL TO YOUR CAREER AND WHY?” was posed to senior hydrologists all over the world and the answers run from the predictable (Groundwater by Freeze and Cherry), the unexpected (House at Pooh Corner), classic (The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses), eclectic (Slowness) to difficult (Scale of Fluctuation of Rainfall Models). Out of this broad range of influential reading, it is the explanation of why a particular body of work made a difference in a career path that is most illuminating. I particularly like the quote provided by Gregory Pastenack: “Show me a person who has read a thousand books and I’ll show you my best friend; show me a person who has read but one and I will show you my worst enemy.” Happy reading.
– Stu Hamilton

Making Better Sense of the Mosaic of Environmental Measurement Networks: A System-of-Systems Approach and Quantitative Assessment

The intent of this paper is to develop a system of diverse observation systems for the purpose of ground-truthing satellite observation systems. The challenge is that while it is possible to develop methods to identify incorrect data, the residue is not necessarily all correct data. Confidence in the data has to come from attributes such as whether the data source is well documented, well understood, representative, updated, publicly available, and maintains rich metadata. If broadly adopted, the system-of-systems approach will have potential benefits in guiding users to the most appropriate set of observations for their needs and in highlighting to network owners and operators areas for potential improvement.
– Stu Hamilton

Murky Waters: Taking a Snapshot of Freshwater Sustainability in BC

This statement: “There’s a huge opportunity here to improve data collection, monitoring, and reporting. Reliable data would help governments, funders, and non-profits to track progress, make better decisions, and coordinate their efforts” is from Jack Wong, the CEO of the Real Estate Foundation of BC. The recommendations of this study include: “Regular public opinion surveys on freshwater attitudes (…) conducted by a cross-section of water partners to ensure long-term availability of the data”; “A multi-faceted solution (…) involving diverse groups that gather water data to increase the quantity and quality of data and improve data accessibility”; “This report shows a huge opportunity to convene relevant players and discuss solutions for freshwater sustainability data collection, monitoring, and reporting. If successfully implemented, communities across the province will be more informed and better stewards of BC’s most precious resource.”
– Stu Hamilton

Attributing Changing Rates of Temperature Record-Breaking to Anthropogenic Influences

Attribution of cause to effect in natural environments is a difficult problem. It is one thing to be able to use monitoring data to say what is happening. It is much more challenging to say why it is happening. While difficult, attribution is important. Without compelling attribution, there are deeply entrenched reasons to stay the course and not make the changes necessary to achieve better outcomes. I am interested to know if the relatively simple method used in this paper for attribution of cause to extreme temperatures could be applied for other types of data. For example, wouldn’t it be good to have compelling attribution of cause for harmful algal blooms?
– Stu Hamilton

U.S. Government Global Water Strategy 2017

This report makes a compelling argument about how looking after water is in the best strategic interests of the United States. It is better to anticipate predictable problems and take relatively inexpensive actions (e.g. wise use of data to influence proactive measures) to avoid or mitigate challenges to human health and economic development, both of which must be managed to ensure peace and security.
– Stu Hamilton

Designing the Climate Observing System of the Future

Print this article and put it on the desk of the senior administrators in your water monitoring agency. The arguments made here that climate observation networks offer a magnified return on investment all hold true for water monitoring as well. “Climate change is but one example of the need to make decisions under deep uncertainty. Developing new approaches to decision making that go beyond traditional point and probabilistic predictions is the focus of a new scientific undertaking. Developing adaptation pathways that will be robust under many possible futures will in part require observing systems that are designed with these needs in mind.” “The economic value of such a system at ~ $10 trillion dollars to the world economy in today’s value (known as “net present value” in economics using a 3% discount rate). In the simplest sense, this is the economic value of moving climate scientific understanding forward 15 to 20 years by using better observations, analysis, and modeling capabilities. The studies further estimated that if the world tripled its current economic investments in climate research (observations, analysis, modeling) to achieve such an advanced observing system, the return on investment would be ~ $50 for every $1 invested by society.”

– Stu Hamilton

WMO: 2017 Is Set to Be In Top Three Hottest Years, With Record-Breaking Extreme Weather

The average global temperature from January to September 2017 was approximately 1.1°C above the pre-industrial era. The years of 2013-2017 are set to be the warmest five-year period on record. The past three years have all been in the top three years in terms of temperature records. The WMO statement is based on five independently maintained global temperature data sets. The rate of increase in CO₂ from 2015 to 2016 was the highest on record, 3.3 parts per million/year, reaching 403.3 parts per million.
– Stu Hamilton

Citizen Science for Hydrological Risk Reduction and Resilience Building

This paper affirms the central theme of my whitepaper “Improving Outcomes for Freshwater Availability, Security and Sustainability: Water Data Asset Management as a Strategic Investment.” The key to good governance is well-informed stakeholders. Water monitoring best serves public interests when data is managed as a strategic asset.
– Stu Hamilton

Where Does the Water in Streams Come From When It Rains?

I like this blog post for how it explains catchment processes as a lead-in to explaining the value of isotope hydrology. I think this approach is a good one for anyone in monitoring to remember when explaining what we do and why we do it. Start with the why and end with the what.
– Stu Hamilton

A Multi-Scaled Geospatial and Temporal Database of Lake Ecological Context and Water Quality for Thousands of U.S. Lakes

An integrated database of data from 51,101 lakes in the northeast United States has been developed to assist with the problems arising from too many disperse and limited data sources. Three decades of data can now be discovered in its location and context (i.e. land use, geologic, climatic, and hydrologic settings). The database contains 150,000 measures of total phosphorus, 200,000 measures of chlorophyll, and 900,000 measures of Secchi depth.
– Stu Hamilton