Solomon Seyoum and Claire Michailovsky

Based on slides from Dr. Janez Susnik

 Describe different types of water resources data,
generated from ground and RS measurements
 Describe a hydrological data monitoring network

 Focus of this lecture:

• Hydro-climatic data (quantitative) from ground measurements
• Remote Sensing data
• Data-related issues
 Description of water resources data needed for water
management at various scales (e.g. river basin)
 Important considerations on water resources data and
hydrological data monitoring network.
 Exploring publically available water resources data on
the web (e.g. USGS)
 Why do we need water resources data
• To properly manage water resources, we should
• know where they are,
• in what quantity and quality, and
• how variable they are likely to be in the future
• Preparation and distribution of flood forecasts and warnings;
• Design of spillways, highways, bridges and culverts;
• Flood plain mapping;
• Determining and monitoring environmental or ecological flows;
• Managing water rights and transboundary water issues;
 Why do we need water resources data
• Construction of dams, city water supply, irrigation system,
dikes to control flood, bridges;
• Setting up water allocation and water rights
• Protecting water quality and regulating pollutant discharges
• Public health issues (e.g. better control of water born diseases)
• Planning and management in other sectors (e.g. Energy-
hydroelectricity, tourism, spatial planning-e.g. town planning)
• Education and research;
• Others…???
 3. Water Demand and
1. Hydrological data 2. Meteorological Data use Data (agriculture,
Main focus of domestic, environment
(Water quantity, (weather information,
this lecture
quality) climatic data)

4. Water related 5. Water governance data

infrastructure data (e.g. (institutions, policy and
dams, canals, drainage, Water Resources Data legal environement)
WWT)

6. Other relevant data (e.g. ecology, topography, land use, soils)

 Hydrological data
• Quantity, flows, timings
• e.g. precipitation, river flows, groundwater levels,
evapotranspiration, soil moisture, extraction volumes/locations,
flood timings
 Water Quality Data
• e.g. pH, EC, TSS, temperature, BOD, COD, DO, HCO3, N & P,
heavy metals (mercury, lead, arsenic), pathogens (e-coli,
worms)
• Wastewater (quantity and quality), volumes treated.
• Seasonal variation
 Meteorological Data
• e.g. precipitation, temperature, wind, humidity, solar radiation,
weather forecasts, incoming/outgoing radiation
• Climate variability and change data (e.g. to assess the impact
on water resources)
 Water demand and consumption data
• e.g. domestic uses (water demand and consumption per capita.
l/capita/day or m3/capita/day. What is it used for? When?)
• Agricultural use (e.g. crop water demand and consumption;
potential ET and actual ET, m3/ha/year; irrigation diversions
m3/s, net application)
• Hydropower (e.g. flow through turbines, m3/s; water head, m;
timing of releases)
• Environmental flow requirements (legislation?)
 Water related infrastructure data
• Dams (number; characteristics, operation rules, water releases,
capacity);
• Irrigation canals (designed discharge, actual discharge);
• City water supply network (WDNs);
• Wastewater treatment plants;
• Dikes;
• Stormwater infrastructure
 Water Governance Data and information
• Water laws, informal arrangements;
• Water and related government agencies/department/ministries;
• NGOs;
• WUAs; Farmer Associations
• International and regional agreements
• Water Conflict Data (Conflict chronology, spatial location,
reasons)
 Other related data
• Geology-aquifer areal extent, land use, soils, topography,
• population, total, rural, urban, growth rates
• Environment and Ecology
• Public health, Water born diseases
• Internal-and-external renewable water resources, per capita
water availability
• Access to safe drinking water and sanitation
• Water’s influence on other sectors?
 Exercise Task: Using the example of water resources data
needed for river basin management from Burton and
Molden (2004), you are asked to:

• Examine the listed data. Identify missing data you would like to
include in the list and/or data not necessary for the stated purpose
(analysis and assessment of water resources)

• Describe the water resources data required for the assessment of

water availability and demand

• Examine any river basin (preferably in your country)with respect to

the availability of these data sets.
 Exercise Steps

• Step 1: Each participant works independently on the given

exercise

• Step 2: Participants discuss their observations in three groups

(compare similarities and differences)

• Step 3: Three short presentations

River basin data. Source:
Burton and Molden (2004)
 The hydrological data monitoring network includes:
• The networks of hydrological observing stations
• The instruments and communication links
• The methods of observation
• The observers and network supervisors
• Quality control and verification

 The observations include all major terms of the water

balance, and include water quantity, water quality, river
bed and sediment
 Specific types of stations are (WMO, 2006):
• Hydrometric stations
• Groundwater stations
• Climatological stations and precipitation stations for
hydrological purposes
• Hydrological stations for specific purposes

 Given the costs and effort of planning, installation and

operation, the first three station types should operate
continuously for a minimum of 10 years
 Hydrometric stations: Observations
related to rivers, lakes and reservoirs
• Stage (m)
• Stream flow (m3 s-1)
• Sediment transport and/or deposition (kg)
• Characteristics and extent of ice cover
• Chemical, physical and biological properties
of water

River flow gauge showing high and low

flow conditions- Karkheh Basin Iran
 Hydrometric stations: Siting and
exposure
• The site should be accessible during flooding
situations
• No influence of backwater from tributaries,
downstream dams, lakes
• Straight stream reach, flow perpendicular to
cross-section
• Minimum depth 0.3 m, flow velocity > 0.15 m/s
• Regular and stable channel bed
• No aquatic growth and minimal ice
accumulation
 Groundwater stations: Observations
related to saturated subsurface water
• Depth to ground water table
• Chemical, physical and biological
properties of water
• Rate and volume of abstraction or recharge

Example showing groundwater stations.

source USGS
 Groundwater stations: Siting and exposure
• No influence of pumping in groundwater
observation wells
• Measurement in pumped wells after recovery of
the water table when pumping is stopped
• Wells protected from rain, and from seepage or
flooding by surface water to prevent pollution
 Climatological stations : Observations related to
the atmospheric phase of the water cycle
• Precipitation (amount and time of occurrence; type: rain,
snow, hail, sleet; continuous, intermittent; intensity)
• Air temperature (incl. min/max)
• Humidity
• Wind speed and direction Climate station, Pole Chehre, Karkheh
• Cloud type and amount basin, Iran.

• Snow cover ( Snow depth, Snow density, Snow water

equivalent)
• Evaporation (as measured by evaporation pan or
lysemeter)
• Solar radiation and/or sunshine
• Soil moisture and soil temperature
 Climatological: Siting and exposure
• level, short grass; N-S oriented plot of 7 m × 10 m (smaller for only a few
elements), possibly surrounded by open fencing
• No steeply sloping surroundings
• Distance between instruments and trees, buildings or other objects at least
two, preferably four, times the height of the object above measurement level

 Observation/reporting standard conditions:

• Precipitation: 30 cm height (1 m in case of snowfall), sheltered from wind
• Air temperature and humidity: 2 m height
• Wind speed: reported for 2, 5, 10 m height
• Soil temperature, moisture: 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 cm depth in 2 × 2 m patch
 A hydrological-data network is a group of data-
collection activities that are designed and operated to
address a single objective or a set of compatible
objectives. (WMO-No. 168)
 The type of measurement and design of a network are
function of what is being measured and for what reason
 Objective of monitoring network design is to establish a
network, which provides its user(s) with sufficient
information against minimal costs
 What is sufficient depends on the monitoring objectives
as defined by the user(s)
 Objective / objectives of the monitoring programme
based on
• data needs by users;
• potential future requirements;
 Physical characteristics of the systems to be monitored
• Scale and the variability of the phenomena to measure, scale of
the measurement domain
 Regular review of the network is necessary
• Does it still serve the purpose?
• Did user requirements change?
• New stations – close other stations?
• Costs – budgets?
• Human capacity?
• Does it still work properly?
 The optimum network can be found by cost-effectiveness
analysis
 Effectiveness is a function of:
• variables / elements to be monitored; locations of the stations;
frequencies of observation; instruments and methods of observation;
quality of the data; usefulness of the data (how used, what for, by
who?)
 Costs are related to:
• land acquisition; construction of station facilities; equipment
acquisition and installation; fixed assets depreciation; operation and
maintenance programmes; field and office staff salaries; logistics
requirements; computational costs; upgrades
 A network design addresses the following questions
• sampling variables - v (what is to be measured)
• sampling locations – L (where is to be measured)
• sampling frequencies - f (how often is to be measured)
• sampling duration (how long is to be measured)
 Where do hydrological observations need to be
observed?
• It depends upon the objective
• Flood warning vs flood risk
• Hydropower operations vs hydropower feasibility

 Data for warnings and operational needs are very site-

specific whereas risk and feasibility assessments
require basin-scale data.
 Where is monitoring needed?
Additional monitoring locations to consider
• Flood warning stations near population centers or important
infrastructure
• Inflow, outflow, and pool elevation for irrigation and hydropower
reservoirs
• Special projects or model calibration
• GW and WQ require their own unique considerations
 What is the duration of the observation program?
 A well-designed long-term network will satisfy many objectives.
• Feasibility studies
• Trends
 However, a network may also include short-term stations to meet
certain project-oriented objectives
• Time of travel studies
• GW contaminant plume analysis
• Model development
• Regulatory compliance
 These stations may require different types of instrumentation.
Sometimes more sophisticated, sometimes less.
 The installation of measuring equipment, including
• the choice of measuring methods
• the design, calibration and installation of equipment
• the choice and installation of data transmission systems
 The implementation of a data processing system,
including the choice of
• a suitable database structure
• pre-processing methods
• post-processing methods
• analysis and retrieval methods
• suitable hardware configuration
 the organization of a Measurement Service
 Measurement quality
• Measurement result = value +/- uncertainty
• Accuracy – the extent to which a measurement agrees with the true
value, which is unknown due to error. What is precision then?
• Sources of error include:
• Datum or zero-point error between instrument components
• Reading error due to poor visibility, waves or ice
• Inexact evaluation between scale marks
• Lack of observer skill, negligence, poor instructions
• Instrument errors
• Use beyond instrument range and specifications
• Imperfect instrumentation, methods, exposure and interaction
 Data quality control
• Quality of the individual observation
• Individual observation with respect to long-term site
record/statistics
• Individual observations with respect to neighbour observations
• Regular calibration, verification and testing/benchmarking
• Metadata completeness
 Time reference
• Universal Coordinated Time (UTC)
• Formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). This is used in
particular for global data sets.

• Local time (civil time)

• Set per country or for different time zones in a country. A time zone (TZ)
is usually indicated by an offset with respect to UTC, e.g. +08:00 for
China (For time zones, see e.g. Wikipedia)
• Important note: Never use Daylight Saving Time (DST) for data
reporting!
 Date/time notation
• Many countries use different notations for dates and times
• 98/02/26 3 pm, 02/26/1998 15:00, 26 Feb 1998 03 pm CET can all refer to
the same instance depending on local conventions.
• This may be confusing when transferring data across agencies or countries
• To avoid ambiguity, ISO 8601- Data elements and interchange
formats provides an international standard for:
• Date and time representation;
• Time interval representation; and
• Example: 1998-02-26 15:00+01:00
• The standard is particularly suitable for reading by electronic systems
and has been adopted by many organizations worldwide. For further
details see ISO (2004).
 Water level measurements
• Stations that measure water levels need an elevation
benchmark, i.e. a reference point with known elevation from
which relative levels are measured
• Often, the national mean sea level datum is used for levels in
rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and groundwater levels
 Units of measurement - should use SI units
Item Element Symbol Recommended units Remarks

3 Area A m2
4 Chemical quality mg l−1 For dilute solutions
9 Depth, diameter, thickness d m
10 Discharge (rivers, wells) Q, Qwe m3 s−1, l s−1
13 Evaporation E mm Over a specified time period
14 Evapotranspiration ET mm Over a specified time period
18 Head, static (water level) h m
33 Precipitation P mm Over a specified time period
35 Pressure p Pa
37 Radiation intensity (flux) IR J m−2 s−1 (W m−2) General term
40 Relative humidity U %
42 Runoff R mm Over a specified time period
50 Soil moisture Us % volume
57 Sunshine n/N (decimal fraction)

59 Temperature θ, T °C, K
69 Wind speed u m s−1
 Metadata - without metadata, the actual data will be
difficult to interpret!
• Station identification code • River cross-section, rating curve(s)

• Station type / network • Well diameter, screen depth(s)

• latitude, longitude, elevation, date • Instrument type and details

• Region / state / province / • Measurement method(s)

municipality • Observation programme (times etc.)
• River basin, tributary • Data collection / transmission
• Station owner / operator organization, methods
person carrying out the reading • Other notable comments
• Starting (and ending) date of record
 Database
 What is a database
• A database is an organized collection of structured data,
typically stored electronically in a computer system

 The need for a hydrological data base

• To keep a historical archive by responsible organization
• Access by different people at different times for different projects
• Research and re-analysis
 Independent development by the operating organization
• This is for large organizations who have sufficient personnel
with good programming skills to develop the processing,
analysis and visualization software. The core is usually formed
by a general purpose data base system.

 Use specialist hydrological data management software

• This reduces the costs of additional software development, but
is less flexible to adapt to changes. The organization is also
dependent on contracts with the supplier for upgrades.
 General purpose data base systems:
• Oracle (http://www.oracle.com)
• Sybase (http://www.sybase.com)
• MS Access (http://www.microsoft.com/access)
• MS-SQL (http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver)
• MySQL (http://www.mysql.com) open source
• PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org) open source
 Hydrological data base systems, incl. processing, analysis,
visualization:
• Tideda (http://www.niwa.cri.nz/rc/instrumentsystems/tideda)
• Hymos (http://www.wldelft.nl/soft/hymos/int/index.html)
• Hydata (http://www.ceh.ac.uk/products/software/CEHSoftware-
HYDATA.htm)
• WISKI (http://www.kisters.com.au)
• Hydstra (http://www.kisters.com.au)
• HEC-DSS (http://www.hec.usace.army.mil/software) free software
 Information is obtained from analyzing the measured
data.
• should correspond to the information as required by the
monitoring objectives.
• a high number of strongly correlated data may contain less
information than a small number of uncorrelated data
• As an example;
• objective “detection of violations of standards” requires the use of a high
sampling frequency
• objective ‘’detect long-term trends” requires less sampling frequency
 Tables
Statistical analysis
Graphs

Tables

Data base Numerical models Graphs

Maps

Contour maps

Interpolation/GIS Image maps

Transect plots
I. The monitoring objectives should be identified, and
quantified. Also, an adequate measure of the
monitoring effectiveness has to be defined;
II. The physical aspects of the system should be studied in
order to identify the relevant process dynamics and the
corresponding temporal and spatial scales;
III. The way the data should be analysed has to be chosen.
This strongly depends on the physical aspects and the
monitoring objectives;
IV. The effectiveness of the information, E, should be
determined. For this purpose, a relationship has to be
found between the effectiveness E and the variables f, L
and V (sampling variable);
V. The costs of the monitoring program should be
calculated;
VI. A cost-effectiveness analysis should be made, yielding
optimal values for sampling frequencies, locations and
variables.
 World Meteorological organization (WMO)
 Data and information under many themes
• Water
• Weather
• Climate
• Environment
• Natural Hazards
• Etc
 Many water related programs
 Visit the site and explore further!!
 For more information Visit:
http://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html
 IWMI water data portal
 Water and other related data (e.g.
environment, agriculture) available for many
basins/countries (e.g. Karkheh, Indo
Ganges, Limpopo, Mekong basins)
 All data is not public (some is only for use
by IWMI projects for which data was
collected)
 Access to data is provided in compliance
with copyrights, intellectual property rights
and data agreements.
 Still many data sets are public or could be
obtained through request
 For more information Visit:
http://waterdata.iwmi.org/
 Bureau of Meteorology, Australia
 Data and information about water (
Water Accounts; Australian Water
Resources Assessment; Flow
forecasting)
 For more information Visit:
http://www.bom.gov.au/water/ssf
/index.shtml
 Department of Water
Affairs South Africa
• Data and information under
many themes
• Hydrological services-Surface
water
• Water quality
• Water use

For more information Visit:

http://www.dwaf.gov.za/
 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK
 Data and information under many
themes
• Hydrological services
• Water quality
• Water use
• Meteorological
• Land use/cover
• Flood risk
• Soil types

For more information Visit: www.ceh.ac.uk

 USGS water data
• Current water conditions
• Surface water
• Groundwater
• Water quality
• Water use
• Data freely available
• Data and information in many formats
• Tables
• Graphs
• Maps
• Time series, summaries

For more information Visit:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis
 USGS water data
• Example groundwater data
• Depth to water level
• Feet below land
• Feet above a datum (NGVD
1929)
• Approved data and Provisional
Data

For more information Visit:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis
Thank you for your attention!