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The major interoperability challenges in this scenario include: •
Representation of rating tables in a consistent form. Each agency describes
rating tables differently, without consistent semantics for the core domain concepts.
•
Different vocabularies. There are no agreed on national or international
standards for codes and vocabularies within Australia for terms such as data quality, observed properties and so on. The Water Data Transfer Format WDTF
used by the Bureau to ingest data from water agencies provides some precedent, and may be re-used for the purposes of the IE.
• No web-service access. There are currently no means for accessing rating and
gauging data over the web, outside of generated HTML or PDF reports. Figure 1 shows the setup of the exchange in this scenario.
Figure 1 - Australian exchange scenario
6.2 Scenario 2 – River Modeling and Flood forecasting United States
The US-based scenario involves transfer of data between the USGS’s National Water Information System NWIS, the National Weather Service NWS, and the US Army
Corps of Engineers USACE. NWS requires the most up to date rating tables and
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gaugings to run flood-forecasting models. The USACE also requires these data to manage reservoirs and maintain navigable waterways nationwide. There is current rating
table exchange occurring between the three agencies. There are plans to improve this exchange especially in light of the USGS’ adoption of new commercially developed data-
processing software which does not support the existing rating-exchange format. The OGC WaterML20 IE was identified as a potential way to prototype new sharing
arrangements. Figure 2 shows the exchange scenario.
Staff from the National Weather Service have conducted a preliminary review of the WaterML2 Part2 encodings and have just recently identified a project to begin work on a
client, however, neither they nor the US Army Corps of Engineers implemented a client in time for this IE.
Figure 2 shows the setup of the exchange in this scenario.
Figure 2 - US exchange scenario
6.3 Scenario 3 – Public data publishing United Kingdom
The UK scenario involves a publishing use case in which the Center for Ecology and Hydrology provided open data access for major UK flow monitoring sites. Existing
JSON web-services exist for creation of web-pages, but these are not consumed by other
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clients. Increased data sharing between agencies and development of complex clients will benefit the adoption of standards-based web-services. A CSIRO web-client was used to
show how a standards-based client can consume multiple WaterML2.0 data services.
•
Interoperable client - Web client accessing different implementations of the
same service.
Providing consistent Open Data. The simple act of making data available open is a good step towards improved data access. Further, providing data in a common, well-
described format enhances a community’s ability to share tools and experiences.
Figure 3 shows the setup of the UK exchange in this scenario.
Figure 3 - UK exchange scenario
6.4 Scenario 4 – Validation and Visualization
