Hydrology Corner Blog: Blog

Is 49 Years Long Enough?

I have had the great pleasure of several decades of overlap of my career with that of Lynne Campo who retired on June 28th after 49 years of hydrometric data management for the Water Survey of Canada (WSC). I first met Lynne as a novice stream hydrographer in 1981 when I was sent to Vancouver for training in the art and science of hydrometric data processing. In a few short days Lynne laid out the foundation for the rest of my career.

It’s Time for a Change!

There’s a certain amount of comfort in knowing that tomorrow will be familiar. Familiar routines, familiar opportunities and familiar challenges are all welcome because the only alternative, creating new experiences, is unpredictable. People are risk-averse and we like predictability. This is true whether we are a hydrometric agency needing to modernize or an individual embarking…

Welcoming Tokay Software to the Aquatic Informatics Team

This week, Aquatic Informatics welcomed Tokay Software to our growing family of digital water solutions, joining recent arrivals Linko and WaterTrax. Read: Aquatic Informatics Expands Municipal Digital Water Portfolio A proven leader in backflow prevention and cross-connection control management, Tokay is a natural extension of our platform. For our team, this partnership represents another critical…

Women who work in the water industry making a W with their arms.

International Women’s Day Video – March 8, 2019

Last year, we celebrated International Women’s Day by kicking off our first ever “Women in Water” feature with a highly popular blog series showcasing the achievements of women working in the water industry. This year, we thought we’d continue the tradition by rallying around the official theme of International Women’s Day 2019, #BalanceforBetter.

Why Does the Role of the Hydrographer in Rating Curve Development Even Need an Explanation?

I am very happy to announce that the paper: The Role of the Hydrographer in Rating Curve Development has now been published in Confluence: Journal of Watershed Science and Management. Marianne Watson, Robin Pike, and I all learned a lot from each other in the process of writing this paper, resulting in a product that is greater than the sum of the inputs.

A Question of Scale – Reconciling Information Density with Information Scarcity

Laboratory analysis of a water quality sample links a lot of data to a singular point in time and space. However, the objectives for monitoring may span scales from point (e.g. at an outfall) to watershed (e.g. to characterize waters; identify trends; assess threats; inform pollution control; guide environmental emergency response; and support the development, implementation, and assessment of policies and regulations).

The Value of Uncertain Data

Evidence-based decision-making is a useful framework for the development of policies and practices to ensure water security, ecosystem resilience, and productive societies. The term “evidence-based” is gradually yielding to the term “data-driven” as focus shifts from specified data (i.e. fit-for purpose) to data discovery (i.e. big data) as the source of evidence.

A Question of Unity – Calculating the Velocity Coefficient

I was recently asked to explain why I recommend starting from a value of 1 (i.e., unity) as a first guess for the velocity coefficient for unconstrained alluvial channels. This probably does deserve an explanation (or 4) because I’ve never heard anyone else recommend the unity conjecture, in spite of the inherent elegance of such simplicity.

Have You Been Wier’d?

I was recently in South Australia doing some ratings training and learned of a tradition that I think should be shared globally amongst hydrographers. When a South Australian hydrographer gets a period of record high gauging, they get wier’d.

Strategic Recommendations for Water Monitoring for the Next 25 Years

A new report, “Future Water Priorities for the Nation: Directions for the U.S. Geological Survey Water Mission Area,” speaks to water science and resources challenges for the next 25 years. While written specifically for the Water Mission Area (WMA) for the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the driving forces for change are applicable to any region of the world.

Sustainable Water Data Management in Africa

The African continent is characterized by diverse geographic features, climates, and cultures but a common denominator is that African nations are working hard to improve social stability, economic security, public health, and environmental sustainability. Solutions emerging from various political adventures seem to be evolving toward a mix of governance approaches sourced from the west (based on an ideal of democratic capitalism) and those sourced from the east (based on an ideal of progressive socialism).

Data Management: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters

The World Economic Forum has ranked the Global Risks for 2018. With the single exception of cyber-security, water is a key factor in the seven other top-ranked high-impact and high-likelihood risks.

Hydrology Corner Blog: Data Asset Management ebook

Does More Water Data Mean Better Water Outcomes?

Water has always been important. The perception of its importance is closely linked to episodes of too much, too little, or the wrong quality. Climate change, urban growth, and agricultural intensification are just three examples of pressures that are contributing to an unprecedented global awareness of the importance of water.

Women in Water, Week 3: Onwards and Upwards

For the final week in our Women in Water series, started on International Women’s Day, we are interviewing women across the world who are dedicated to the protection of the water and the environment, and the use of technology to do so. This week, we met with Tamara Roberts, a Linko user at the City of Bloomington Utilities in Bloomington, IN, USA, and Angela Perks, an AQUARIUS user from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council in New Zealand.

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