Development of a Global Water Quality Portal Using the SSEC RealEarth™ Framework

Abstract:

Water quality is essential for human, ecosystem, and economic health. Having access to current water quality data is critical for water resources management and can be used for examining long-term trends, anticipate changes and understanding watershed/water body connections. The development of an open, web-accessible visualization tool will greatly advance the coordination, delivery, and utilization of water quality information for the global water community. This portal is a collaboration between the Group of Earth Observations (GEO and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering (UW SSEC). This project is utilizing the UW SSEC RealEarth™ visualization technology with capabilities including map displays of satellite-derived water quality information, in situ data sources, providing live graphs, and charts with daily updates and trends that draw attention to water quality issues. The website is also taking advantage of RealEarth™ mobile device alert capabilities and social media sharing (already available through user logins). An innovative feature of this work is automating the assembly of disparate and hard-to-find global water quality information using RealEarth™ by ingesting multiple science formats (NetCDF/HDF5), and allowing for comparison and juxtaposition with other coincident data (much of which is already available in RealEarth™) in a familiar web-map format that facilitates interoperability and easy sharing through GEO-AquaWatch