I’m currently in transition to a new domain and overall focus. Stay tuned for the launch announcement.

The first beta version of Arc Hydro Groundwater is now available from Aquaveo. I have yet to give it a whirl, but like many other Arc Hydro enthusiasts, I have high hopes for this new module. Arc Hydro and Arc Hydro Groundwater are extensions for the ESRI ArcGIS platform that provide powerful tools for water resources science and engineering. To learn more, I highly recommend checking out some of David Maidment’s lectures from his course at UTexas Austin (both slides and streaming video are available). The official ArcHydro book from ESRI Press is also a good resource.

• Arc Hydro Groundwater [via WaterWEBSIS]

From WaterSISWEB, something I had never thought about. How does water behave in space?

Weather Downloader is a handy tool for downloading meteorological data at any location from the Daymet network. Best of all, it is packaged as a toolbox for ArcGIS 9.x and is intended to be used as an add-on to ArcHydro. It can be found through David Maidment’s GIS for Water Resources course, see the Nov 1, 2007 lecture on building an ArcHydro network with Time Series. The software appears on other pages as well, but its difficult to tell where the most up-to-date version resides.

• Weather Downloader [see Lecture #19, Nov 1, 2007]

Circle of Blue has created a Google Earth layer showing water use for each state (from the USGS 2000 report) overlaying current drought conditions (from US Drought Monitor). Not surprisingly, California uses more than twice the water used by any other state, except Texas. Water use per capita or per area would be interesting to see.

• U.S. Water Usage by State on Google Earth [via Circle of Blue]

Hydroseek is one of the first easy-to-use, map-based search engines for locating and downloading water quality data. Built on Microsoft Virtual Earth (not sure why they didn’t use Google), it displays monitoring stations for a number of agencies including EPA, USGS, LTER, and many regional agencies. It also uses the new WaterML internet protocol for disseminating information and data about water (developed by CUAHSI). Unfortunately, it is still in beta mode and only covers a few regions, but its a step in the right direction. Someday I hope we have a truly one-stop website for finding all published water quality data for any given river, lake or estuary.

• Hydroseek

Stormpulse is provides an interactive map utility for tracking hurricane – past, present and future. It provides a wealth of information and data about each hurricane, and has an attractive user interface (best used in full screen mode). Go track Ike right now!

• Stormpulse

The Scientific Information Syndication Websites (SISWEB) has created a section devoted solely to water resources. According to its homepage, SISWEB is “a family of collaborative websites, which provide scientists, researchers, and professionals with free service to know what is new and popular on the web.” I only just added this to Google Reader a few days ago, and already I’m impressed with the content – mainly blog postings, and articles from journals and newspapers on a broad range of water resources topics.

• WaterSISWEB

In 2000, Congress requested the National Research Council (NRC) assess the EPA’s Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program. In particular they were asked to evaluate the scientific basis of the TMDL program. Although the EPA had originally mandated that compliance with the Clean Water Act be based on ambient water quality assessments , such efforts could not be conducted due to limitations of data availability and monitoring technology. So the EPA switched to effluent standards which could be more easily assessed and regulated. However, effluent standards could only target point sources and neglected the contributions from nonpoint sources. Over the past 15 years, the EPA has been reverting back to implementing ambient water quality program through the TMDL program. However, it remains unclear whether we now have the tools and methods to implement this program. In 2001, the NRC released an excellent overview and assessment of the TMDL program.  This book can be read online or downloaded for free from the Naitonal Academies Press.

• NRC – Assessing the TMDL Approach to Water Quality Management

UTexas-Austin professor David Maidment and Utah State’s Christopher Neale have put together a great course on GIS in Water Resources. The course begins with the basics (What is ArcGIS?) and gets all the way through NHDPlus, ArcHydro and CUAHSI, to name just a few of the topics. Streaming videos of each lecture (and powerpoint) are available for free as are the exercises. Great for anyone who would like to develop a solid understanding of GIS in Water Resources.

• UT Austin – GIS in Water Resources