Water and Environmental Hub - AI-EES - Oct 2011

A non-profit project funded by Western Economic Diversification Canada, Cybera Inc. and University of Lethbridge.

Led by University of Lethbridge, Cybera Inc., and Alberta WaterPortal.

Mike Scarth – Executive Director Alberta WaterPortalAlex Joseph – Executive Director Water and Environmental Hub

October 25, 2011

01

Big data The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity

Mobility24/7 access to data and tools (ideas @ anytime, anywhere)

Transparency and SharingTransparency has emerged as a key requirement for applications, policy models and platforms relating to environmental measurement and modeling.

• Americans now absorb three times the information they did in 1960;

• In 2003, a total of five exabytes of data existed. Now we generate that every two days;

• The world is now creating 1,800 billion gigabytes (1.8 zettabytes) of information each year;

• In 2010, more than 5 billion people, or (60% world’s population) using mobile phones - 12% smartphones growing at more than 20% year. More than 30 million networked sensor nodes are now present in the transportation, automotive, industrial, utilities, and retail sectors(growing more than 30% year)

Data is becoming the new raw material of business: an economic input almost on a par with capital and labor. We will move from just recording

data to modifying systems in real time: continuous improvement.

Globally, the issues of environmental stewardship and protection are becoming a key public concern.

This is resulting in an increasing demand for more open and collaborative sharing of environmental data and discussion from a whole new community of people that were not previously engaged.

1st region under water stress

Diverse geography

$trillions water infrastructure

DATA Producers

DATA Users

1st Web Platform for Discovery &Accessibility of

Water Data

There is no “Google” for Water Data

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2/3

2043 MB – Download Full Dataset

Phone Dave for data Subject: Out of Office Auto Reply – on vacation…

“…wouldn’t it be amazing to have one (web) platform for climate and hydrometric data”

– J. Allen (SFU) @ CWRA2011

Problem with Water Data

• Local - majority of water data is stored on paper, local computers, controlled organizational databases -> restricted by storage medium

• Stranded - little water data is available online, what is available is piecemeal -> not web connected

• Hidden, Dispersed - most of what is available is on many different websites, often obscured within those websites -> dispersed widely

• Opaque - most of what is available is only in downloadable format -> all or nothing

• Custom Format - most are not standardized -> custom structures

• Human Required - virtually none are available as an API -> requires human intervention

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The Dream

• All water data is available through web services - including historical, new data can be found automatically

• (at least) One great node where one can efficiently search and find water data one is looking for

• Data can be converted/transformed on the fly• User can easily mash together datasets• Users have access to great tools and can custom build

tools• Users can integrate water data with other types of data

from other sources through API

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Approach

• Distributed: data stays with owners• Scalable: exists in the cloud• Seamless: acts as one virtual database• Multi-access: multiple portals, tools• Standards-based: use nat’l & int’l

standards

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• Open Cloud-based Web Platform• Water and Environmental Data• Visualization Tools (charts, graphs)• Social networking to enable commenting, flagging and

sharing of datasets• Develop Applications (Apps) through (RESTful) API

• Makes more water data available• Makes it searchable under one roof• Makes it distributable/transferrable to others• Significantly lowers cost of working with water data

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Dissolving Boundaries

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political commercial institutional data applications

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Handling the Data

WAREHOUSE

WC2N

DRIIP3

GIN

Env Can?

AB Env?

CATALOGUE WAREHOUSE NETWORK

Fragmented Duplicated, Delayed Distributed, Real Time

Surface Water Quality Program (AENV)Water Survey of CanadaTransAlta Scheduled releasesTransAlta Reservoir levelsNaturalized stream flow projections (daily, weekly)Data Access IntegrationCanadian Centre for Climate Modeling and AnalysisNOAA WMS30 yr norms climate dataPRISM datasetNational Climate Data and Information Archive NavCan Aviation WeatherWind SpeedRadiationPotential Evaporation maps Climate surfaces

TRAN

SLAT

OR

WEH

UB

CATALOG

META DATA

OBS DATA WEB SERVICESWMSWFS

Sensor Obs ServiceWaterML

GroundwaterML

HYDAT Custom

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Browse data

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Metadata

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Share data

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Visualize data

A great platform with no data is…

When the Water and Environmental Hub launched in July the cup was only half full…

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Develop Apps with API

Hard to find water data

Expensive to publish water data

Difficult to distribute water data

Costly to use water data

Easy to search and discover water data

Lower cost to publish water data including real time

~$0 distribution of water data

Easy to mashup and integrate water data into applications

A non-profit project funded by Western Economic Diversification Canada, Cybera Inc. and University of Lethbridge.

Led by University of Lethbridge, Cybera Inc., and Alberta WaterPortal.

Mike Scarth – Executive Director Alberta WaterPortalAlex Joseph – Executive Director Water and Environmental Hub

October 25, 2011

01