Interoperable data resources for landscape-scale hydrology and ecology a brief history and vision for the future.

Abstract:

In recent years, self-describing web services and files formats, machine interpretable documentation, and large-scale parallelized computing have become commonplace. Given this, the idea of ‘cheap interoperability' (inexpensive or low barrier of entry to use and reuse data and software to solve diverse problems) has been a common goal, achieved by bringing data producers and users together. The USGS Water Mission Area has engaged in interagency initiatives such as the Open Water Data Initiative and Climate Data Initiative, working towards this goal for the hydrology and ecology domains. Activities include helping to establish open standards and best practices, publishing data and services according to these practices, and contributing to open-source software projects for servers and clients. Here, we present a broad overview of these activities among several federal agencies, highlighting recent advances and discussing opportunities for improvement. Advances and challenges will be illustrated with specific examples of scientific or decision support use cases and the respective interagency initiatives, which have provided structure and context. Strategies for improving interoperability among federal data providers to better enable national landscape-scale analysis will be discussed.