MEASURING WATER USE IN A GREEN ECONOMY - UNEP

Measuring water use in a green economy
interpretation of compliance data is also
complicated by the scale to which it relates.
For example, it may refer to a national
territory, rather than a natural feature such as
a river basin.
Reporting pursuant to legal obligations
generally provides quality-assured data.
However, the monitoring networks and
observation systems that generate such data
are often broad in scope and may not be
quality-assured at every level. For example,
the methodologies used to derive figures for
statistical purposes are often restricted to
updates of yearly data. In contrast, the watermonitoring
data collected by environmental
agencies are often derived from in-stream
instruments, which measure parameters in
real time. Time-histories can then be derived
for different spatial scales to meet specific
operational demands.
Scientific programmes and modelling can
provide a wide array of data types but are often
restricted in time and space and may change
in the light of new theories and ideas. In
Box 3.1 Open geospatial data standards for water
A significant improvement in the exchange of spatial information on water is the development
of common standards between the World Meteorological Organization and the open
Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
Water resources, weather, and natural disasters are not constrained by local, regional or
national boundaries. Effective research, planning and response to major events call for
improved coordination and data sharing among many organisations, which requires improved
interoperability among their diverse information systems.
The historic time-series records of surface freshwater resources compiled by US national
agencies alone today comprise more than 23 million distributed datasets. Cataloguing and
searching efficiently for specific content from so many datasets presents a challenge to current
standards and practices for digital geospatial catalogues.
Sponsored by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science
(CUAHSI), OGC has completed a water information concept development study on applying
OGC web service standards in the domain of water information. The study investigated
architectures and practices for cataloguing, discovering and accessing selected water resource
data from very large numbers of distributed datasets.
The study built on current best practices within OGC, as well as experimental research by
CUAHSI and other OGC members of the Hydrology Domain Working Group. It resulted
in a report (OGC, 2011) which provides the basis for further development and possible future
OGC Interoperability Program projects.
The report provides guidelines and recommendations for open information system architectures
that support publishing, cataloguing, discovering and accessing water observations data
using open standards. The intended audience is US federal, state and local agencies as well
as international organisations and agencies, and universities and research organisations that
collect water data and need to make the data widely available. The audience also includes data
consumers who need to discover, access and integrate data from multiple sources in studies
related to hydrological science and water-resource management
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