Hydrology Corner Blog: Data Quality

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.

The Need for Better Monitoring to Protect Canada’s Freshwater Resources

Canada has an abundance of freshwater. Our belief in this abundance is deeply embedded in our culture, so much so, that a recent survey shows that Canadians are not inclined to spend tax dollars on water. However, the evidence doesn’t justify our confidence.

How to Solve 5 Common Discrete Water Sampling Challenges

It’s with great pleasure that I’m hosting this month’s webinar on February 28th about some of the most common discrete data management challenges. This topic comes up repeatedly in the field of environmental data management. Regardless of the size of your organization, I’m sure some of the challenges that we’re going to outline will resonate with you and your colleagues.

Linking the Flow of Data to the Flow of Water – Better Information Yields Better Outcomes

Inattention and imperfect information costs individuals, organizations and society in immeasurable ways. The relatively new field of information economics (infonomics) is revealing that great efficiencies can be gained by managing information as a strategic asset. All business decisions are made with the information available at the time. Yet, this availability is often a result of desperate scraping of whatever data happens to be readily accessible in real-time resulting in sub-optimal business outcomes. The new insight emerging from the study of infonomics is that decisions can be materially improved by anticipating needs and nurturing the information required to meet those needs.

Internet Truth vs Verifiable Truth – The Importance of Traceable Provenance in Water Information

The most passionate people involved in the water monitoring industry all care deeply about the preservation of traceable provenance for their data. To people on the outside this can seem like an indulgence that adds a burden of work to the data management process with little apparent benefit. The benefit is ‘verifiable truth’, a distinction with little value. Until it matters!

Is Time Series Data Analysis an Endangered Activity?

I have been playing around with Paul Whitfield and Jennifer Dierauer’s Flowscreen R package designed for detecting trends and changepoints in hydrological time series and it got me thinking about how time series data analysis may be becoming an endangered activity. The immediate priority for any monitoring agency is to provide data for urgent requirements. Real-time data dissemination is king. You need to go well down the list of urgencies before you come to the requirements of future generations of hydrologists who have not yet been born.

Creating Shared Value – Can Companies Solve the World’s Water Crisis?

It is increasingly the case that when I am talking to people about what AQUARIUS software ‘should’ do, I find that there are multiple motivations for what ‘should’ means. There are many different ways that value can be perceived and product development depends on this perception. The concept of “shared value” is where companies can solve society’s problems and make profit at the same time.

The Internet of Things (IoT) & Better Water Data

In my Hallowe’en post I presented various ways in which better rigor in tracking data provenance can do many things — up to and including — saving the world during a zombie apocalypse. Today, I would like to focus on a much more immediate and pragmatic benefit of improving traceability of data to source. Our…

Water Nexus or Disjunction? Data will be the Difference

Much has been said about the water-energy-food nexus. The implication of many of these discussions is that we cannot disentangle policies for food and energy from each other because these sectors are inextricably linked by water. The nexus actually has many dimensions: you can add health, safety, economic activity, environmental sustainability, and social justice to…

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

Shared Data, Complete with Discoverable Provenance, Have Unbounded Value

The extensive discussion triggered by my question about the value of an incremental investment in data quality led to the statement that is the title of this post. This conclusion can be re-stated as a mathematical solution for Potential Value: potential value = (data x quality) ^ sharing.

The Economics of Hydrometric Data Quality

Data about water quantity and water quality are fundamental to some of the most important decisions made by engineers and in choices made by societies. Abundance and quality of water are critical factors in many aspects of our economy, our environment, and our social and physical well-being. It is the case than multiple water resources objectives must be simultaneously managed. The costs of sub-optimal water resources choices can be substantial. Uncertainty is antagonistic to optimization.

Quality Shared is Trust Earned – Communicating Water Data Quality

The OGC WaterML 2.0 standard is an industry game-changer. Now it is easier for hydrometric data producers to make their data accessible for timely decision making and it is easier for data consumers to find relevant data to drive evidence-based decision making. Almost as important as the sharing of data is the sharing of data…

There Is Never Too Much Data!

There is more data to deal with than there used to be. However, dealing with it may require a different approach than simply working harder with the same tools. The new “Global Hydrological Monitoring Industry Trends” report confirms the rapid international adoption of continuous monitoring technologies. One of the questions asked of over 700 respondents…

Automation for Real-Time Hydrometric Data Production

Results from the 2012 Report – Global Hydrological Monitoring Industry Trends published by Aquatic Informatics Inc. The first Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) was launched in October 1975. The GOES launch initiated a sequence of events leading to a major re-design of hydrometric programs throughout North America. The relatively cheap and reliable data communication provided…

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