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A CASE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA MANAGEMENT
Citation:
Schade*, T. G. A CASE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA MANAGEMENT. Presented at Data for Science and Society: The Second National Conference on Scientific and Technical Data, Washington, DC, March 13 - 15, 2000.
Description:
In order to support our ongoing research in watershed ecology and global climate change, we gather and analyze environmental data from several government agencies. This case study demonstrates a researcher’s approach to accessing, organizing, and using intersectoral data. The research topic is an assessment of the potential impact of global climate change on engineered environmental systems. Data providers include government agencies, commercial contractors, and professional organizations: Precipitation Data--NOAA; Streamflow Data--USGS; Channel Geometry--USGS; Point-Source Permit Data--EPA; Cost Data--EPA and Professional Organizations. Each group has a unique access requirement and a unique data format. The researcher must shoehorn these data into a format appropriate for the model or method applicable to the problem. For this topic, we require the following models: (1) Water Quality Models--USGS and EPA; (2) Climate Change Models--EPA; (3) Statistical Models--Commercial Software. Synthesizing and analyzing the results from the models is another data management task. In the end, a key goal of the data management is to ease technology transfer; our research should adapt to the efforts of technology-limited data users such as local watershed groups. Our metrics for meeting this goal are economy, efficiency, repeatability, and accuracy.