Current Approaches to the Development of the Databases of Water Quality in the River Basins

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3. CURRENT APPROACHES TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF DATABASES OF WATER QUALITY IN THE RIVER BASINS

 

Easy access to environmental monitoring data is an essential aspect of water quality management of a river basin. Modern technologies and computer applications enable easy accumulation, storage, processing and representation of environmental data.

 

As a rule, environmental databases consist of the following three parts: databases of spatially referred information, attributive databases and databases of environmental monitoring. The attributive databases are a nexus between the data on geographic location of objects and information on their morphological, hydrologic and other characteristics. (For geographers, water quality monitoring stations are described with their longitude and latitude, which determine all the rest of their features, whereas for hydrographers water quality monitoring stations are described with the distance from them to the river mouth, which describes the features of the object). In most of the cases, water quality databases have similar structures. Thus a typical database has the following obligatory fields: “object code”, “geographic coordinates”, “index code”, “day/month/year”, “methodology and method of control”, “monitoring agency”.

 

The information is fed in and updated by means of Internet-based applications. Sample diagram of information exchange between water users, controlling agencies and environmental monitoring bodies is shown in fig.2.

 

Fig.2. Sample diagram of information exchange between water users, controlling agencies and environmental monitoring bodies.

 

The users of the environmental database can be divided into several groups according to the functions they perform. The first group of users is the environmental monitoring bodies and database developers. The have the right to read, add and alter monitoring data. In the case of geo-informational system of the Dnipro basin, these are the structural divisions of the Environmental Ministry of Belarus where WatGIS has been installed and the CRIIWU departments, which are the developers of this software. The second group of users is governmental bodies and management specialists. They have the right to read all monitoring data and add some data related to the management decision making. In the case of geo-informational system of the Dnipro basin, this is the department for monitoring and analytical control at the Belarusian Environmental Ministry, where WatGIS has been installed. Such discrimination of users enables prompt and flexible access to the environmental monitoring data. Upon further upgrading, WatGIS will not only provide the function of data manipulations (adding and changing of the monitoring data, creation of data sampling), but also have properties of a decision making support system (modeling system, expert system, etc.).

 

Examples of organization of water quality databases

 

Example 1.

 

Source: Water-Quality Data Files – NSWQM (archive)

 

In this database, the water-quality and stream flow data sets are available for 679 locations in the United States including 63 HBN stations from 1962 to 1995 and 618 NASQAN stations from 1973 to 1995.

 

Supporting information identifies and describes the water-quality and stream flow stations and watersheds, water-quality constituents, and the methods, remarks, laboratories, sample-collection agencies, and the laboratory measurement accuracy associated with the water-quality data.

 

Information is presented broken region-wise (Fig.3. Selection of the corresponding region number from the list).

 

Fig.3. Example of a region-wise presentation of information in the environmental GIS, currently operating in the USA.

 

For each of the 21 water-resource region there is a list of monitoring stations. The information on each of the station is presented in the following format:

 

1. The USGS code of the station;

2. Name of the station;

3. Hydrological association code;

4. The area of the drainage basin covered by the monitoring station;

5. Administrative association;

6. Coordinates in projections;

7. Identifier of the network;

8. Date of start/end of alterations;

9. Population of the basin;

10. Characterization of the land management;

11. Association with the basin according to the hydrological classification.

 

The water-quality and stream flow data are described in the following way.

Within each of the 21 water-resources regions, the water quality and stream flow data are organized in separate station and parameter files. The name of each file is ssssssss.ttt where ssssssss is the 8-digit USGS station number, and ttt is:

 

ALK for alkalinity, bicarbonate, and carbonate parameters,

BIO for biological parameters,

DMV for daily mean values of stream flow,

MAJ for major dissolved ions,

NUT for nutrients, suspended sediment, and organic carbon,

RAD for radiochemical parameters.

 

Each data file has the same structure for the first 48 characters.

 

Table 4. Structure of the data files of the USGS database (USA)

 

 

The remaining portion of the record is arranged according to the type of the group to which this file belongs (ALK, BIO, DMV, etc.).

Queries to the database are strictly standardized and hierarchically arranged, the results of the queries are presented as text files.

 

Table 5. Structure of a query in the USGS system (USA).

 

Selection of a region

1..21

                       

                      Selection of a station

                        0..ssssssss

                                               

                                                            Selection of a group of indices

                                                0..ttt

                                                                      Result

                                                                                Ssssssss.ttt

 

Example 2.

 

Source: http://www.iksms-cipms.org/

 

At present most basin commissions have their Internet sites, which contain much information including data on water quality of water bodies in the basin and their hydrologic properties.

 

Working with such sections is identical in most of the cases. First user should select a water body or a monitoring station (fig.4).

 

Fig.4. Selection of a monitoring station in the GIS of joint basin of the rivers Mosse and Saar.

 

Then the user obtains information about this water body (name, geographic code, monitoring body, duration of observations, etc.) (fig.5).

 

Fig.5. Representation of the information about the selected monitoring station in the GIS of joint basin of the rivers Mosse and Saar.

 

In certain cases user can select a list of parameters for the query and the period of sampling (fig.6).

 

Fig.6. Selection of a monitoring station form the list of parameters in the GIS of joint basin of the rivers Mosse and Saar.

 

In most of the cases, the results of the query are presented in a text file in an ASCII format, formalized and structured according to the fields of the Database (fig.7).

 

Fig.7. Results of processing of a query in a typical database.

 

In some cases user may receive an XLS file for further assessment and analysis of the data and drawing of the graphs.

 

Having analyzed the existing databases of water quality, we have come to the following conclusions:

 

1. Databases of water quality in many EU countries and the USA have identical structures and a number of similar fields (sections).

2. Geo-informational technologies are widely used for selection and representation of query results.

3. Query results are represented in text files or standardized database files.

4. Databases are created in Windows-compatible applications.

 

Water quality databases are widely used as an important tool during the organization of national and basin water resource commissions.