Data System Inventory Summary

Purpose and Background

This inventory (150k Excel) lists approximately 80 web sites where data and other information is available on water quality, habitat, fish and other parameters related to environmental information in the Northwest.

The document was developed by the Water Quality Workgroup of the Northwest Environmental Data-network (NED), as part of their commitment under section 4.3 of the NED Workplan. The workgroup sought to develop a comprehensive (as of 2005) listing of available water quality databases in the NW. Similar documents have been compiled before by SAIC (2004) and John Piccininni of BPA (2003).

The original intent of the group was to focus on available information sources and projects in the NW related to water data quality. Given the inter-related nature of many environmental sets, this scope quickly expanded to include a variety of other data categories, such as habitat, fish, and geographic information. These are each described briefly in the “Column Definitions” worksheet in this document. As a result, this spreadsheet can be used for more broad purposes.

Current Water Quality workgroup members include Curtis Cude, Oregon DEQ, Jill Leary, Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership, Paul Ocker, US Army Corps of Engineers, John Piccininni, Bonneville Power Administration, and David Tetta, US Environmental Protection Agency (workgroup chair).

Structure of Data System Inventory Worksheet

There are many databases now accessible via the Web, some via common entities / agencies. Because of fluidity of some of the databases as they evolve, the workgroup chose to link to them at a higher level, that is, through their agency's portal or some upper level data entry point. This approach will reduce maintenance of the inventory and offers users the opportunity to discover related data systems of the source agency.

In addition to listing the Title and URL of each data source, the spreadsheet uses column headings to provide a variety of descriptions of the website shown in a given row. General information (title, URL, agency contact information) is contained in Columns A through D. Data management features of a given site listed are listed in columns E through K. Content categories (what kinds of data are on this site?) are listed in columns L through X.

Content Categories came from the original compilation done by John Piccininni. This was later amended to reflect the variety of data sets that would conceivably be of interest to NED members and other interested individuals.

Data management/accessibility Criteria

Evaluation categories and criteria were developed within the context of the National Water Quality Monitoring Council’s Data Management & Access workgroup. Curtis Cude, co-chair of this group, provided the NED Water Quality workgroup with guidance to ensure that this spreadsheet characterized the web sites in a manner that was consistent with NWQMC program. The column headings allow the user to see how the various sites listed compare against some key data management/accessibility criteria.

Suggestions for Use and Development of this Information

The listings contained in this spreadsheet represent web sites that are dynamic and often changing. To maintain the utility of this document, it is suggested that the NED steering committee develop a plan and provide the resources to put this information on the web in a manner in which it can be updated by a wide group of contacts, including the main contact listed for each data base. Options for this include wikis or other types of collaboration environments currently available on the web.