You are here:
Developing a National Stream Morphology Data Exchange: Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities.
Citation:
Collins, M., J. Gray, M. Peppler, F. Fitzpatrick, AND J.P. Schubauer-Berigan. Developing a National Stream Morphology Data Exchange: Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities. IN: EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, 93(20):195, (2012).
Impact/Purpose:
The Subcommittee on Sedimentation (SOS), a subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI) that promotes collaboration on sediment issues, formed a workgroup in 2009 to investigate development of a national stream morphology data exchange (NSMDE). The NSMDE workgroup members represent several federal agencies and non-federal organizations that collect and/or use stream morphology data (see http://acwi.gov/sos/ for more information about the SOS and its member organizations). The SOS workgroup sponsored a NSMDE workshop in April 2011, in Middleton, Wisconsin, that explored three primary themes: data exchange scope; , data exchange scale and potential data models;, and administration. A summary of the workshop, including recommendations to the SOS for advancing a NSMDE,is available at: http://acwi.gov/sos/sos_stream_morph_db_workshopo_summary_to_SOS_10_13_2011.pdf. The full SOS resolved at its regular meeting in October, 2011, that the workgroup should continue efforts to develop a NSMDE using the workshop recommendations as a guiding framework. Toward that end, the NSMDE workgroup has convened an ad hoc subcommittee to identify, and potentially implement, specific actions to achieve the a NSMDE as envisioned by workshop attendees. These efforts may be especially timely given recent, related discussions in the geodetic community about developing metadata standards for terrestrial laser scanning (i.e., ground-based LIDARlidar) [Phillips et al., 2012]. The article describes efforts to develop a NSMDE using the workshop recommendations as a guiding framework.
Description:
Stream morphology data, primarily consisting of channel and foodplain geometry and bed material size measurements, historically have had a wide range of applications and uses including culvert/ bridge design, rainfall- runoff modeling, food inundation mapping (e.g., U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency food insurance studies), climate change studies, channel stability/sediment source investigations, navigation studies, habitat assessments, and landscape change research. The need for stream morphology data in the United States, and thus the quantity of data collected, has grown substantially over the past 2 decades because of the expanded interests of resource management agencies in watershed management and restoration. The quantity of stream morphology data collected has also increased because of state-of-the-art technologies capable of rapidly collecting high-resolution data over large areas with heretofore unprecedented precision. Despite increasing needs for and the expanding quantity of stream morphology data, neither common reporting standards nor a central data archive exist for storing and serving these often large and spatially complex data sets. We are proposing an open- access data exchange for archiving and disseminating stream morphology data.
URLs/Downloads:
Developing a national stream morphology data exchange: needs, challenges, and opportunities.