An End-to-End System for Publishing Environmental Observations Data

An environmental monitoring and telemetry system has been established in the Little Bear River of Northern Utah to investigate water quality issues. Streamflow, water quality, and meteorological sensors have been installed and are currently measuring a suite of environmental variables with frequencies ranging from every 30 minutes to daily. These data are being stored in a relational database that implements the CUAHSI Observations Data Model and are being published through a variety of Internet based applications that provide users with data visualization, summary, and analysis capabilities. This paper will present the GIS technologies and other tools that have been used in the production of an end-to-end system for publishing these environmental observations data on the Internet. These tools include spatial analysis for monitoring site selection, viewshed analysis for the siting of radio telemetry system components in mountainous terrain, and CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System components for manipulating, managing, and publishing the observations data. In addition, this paper will discuss a number of GIS enabled, Internet-based tools that have been developed to provide simple, browser-based point and click interfaces for providing public access to the data