Water data transfer standards

The Water Data Transfer Standards project is part of the Water Information Research and Development Alliance between CSIRO's Water for a Healthy Country Flagship and the Bureau of Meteorology.

• 29 April 2009 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Project summary
• Objective
• Key research deliverables
• Partner

Project summary

Water scarcity is a major challenge facing Australia. The need to accurately monitor, assess and forecast the availability, condition and use of water resources is now more vital than ever.

A key component of the Water Information Research and Development Alliance is the Water Data Transfer Standards project.

The project will develop and define data transfer standards and procedures for the Bureau of Meteorology to input from existing water data providers, and subsequently for the Bureau of Meteorology to publish for water data users, including decision makers.

Objective

Water observations data is a key element of a water resources information system. Water Data Transfer Standards will provide standard encoding for data transfer to support:

• the input and update of data into databases and caches
• standard data delivery interfaces from databases and applications
• the development of applications with a standard data import/export mechanism.

Key research deliverables

By mid 2011, the Water Data Transfer Standards project will deliver:

• a water data transfer format to be used by agencies providing data to the Bureau of Meteorology
• standard interfaces and standard encodings through which water resource applications both inside and outside the Bureau of Meteorology can access data.

These will be designed to be:

• capable of integration with web services and data from related environmental sciences
• compatible with international best practice, and suitable for adoption by the World Meteorological Organization.

Partner

The research alliance brings together Water for a Healthy Country’s leading expertise in water and information sciences with the Bureau of Meteorology’s operational role in hydrologic analysis and prediction.

Other partners in the Water Data Transfer Standards project include:

• Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) [external link]
• Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) [external link]
• World Meteorological Organization (WMO) [external link].

Find out more about the Water Data Transfer Standards project [fact sheet 1.5 MB, PDF] and the Water Information Research and Development Alliance.