1

National Hydrography DatasetApplication Symposium

Andrew T. Battin

Senior Information Resource Management Official

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Office of Water

December 11-14, 2000

The University of Texas at Austin

2

Geo-Referencing History & Purpose

• A Brief History of the Office of Water – Traditional permitted outfall / intake approach– Watershed emphasis

• Recent Agency Emphases– Multi-media program implementation and

oversight– Place-based initiatives– Information integration

• Why Do We Need Geo-Referencing?

3

OW Needs to Portray and Analyze DataGeographically ...

- Monitoring site- Point source discharge- Drinking water supply- …

Polygons

Points

Lines

- Drainage network - 303(d) listed waters- Designated use waters- 305(b) waterbodies

- Watersheds- Source Water Protection Areas- ...

4

To Best Support Its Mission Needs

• Easy Access from the Desktop and Through the Internet

• Enabling Simple Queries to Complex Analyses of OW & Other Data Resources to Support:

– Public Right-To-Know

– TMDLs

– Water Quality Standards

– Source Water Protection Areas

– Water Treatment Construction Needs

– Permits

– Clean Water Action Plan

– Unified Watershed Assessments

– GPRA

– Consolidated Reporting

– Drinking Water Intakes

– ...

Land Use

Demography

Habitat

States/Counties

Surface W

aters

...

5

How Does NHD SupportWater Programs?

• Geo-Referencing of Water Program Information

• EPA & Public Use of Geo-Referenced Water Information to Support Program Implementation and Oversight

• Systems Integration using the Geo-Referencing Framework

6

Water Program Priorities for Geo-Referencing

• Water Quality Standards

• Total Maximum Daily Loads

• Combined Sewer Overflows

• Sanitary Sewer Outfalls

• Tribal Boundaries & Facilities

• Drinking Water Intakes

• Source Water Protection Areas

• Sediments• Nutrients• Stormwater Drains• Beaches• Fish Advisories• STORET Monitoring

7

• Enable simple queries– Locate all permitted

facilities on a river section

• Modeling and other complex analyses– Calculate TMDL for a

river section

• Static & Dynamic Maps and Database Access

Land Use

Demography

Habitat

States/Counties

Surface W

aters

...

EPA & Public Use of Geo-Referenced Water Information

8

Integrated Systems using the Framework

Reach Address Database

NHD Reach Indexing Tool

NH

D R

ea

ch I

nd

ex i

ng

To

ol

Inte

rnet

NHD

WQSDatabase

STORET(modernized)

NationalAssessment

Database

TMDLTrackingSystem

GRTS

ReachID

303(d)Events

TMDLEvents

305(b)Events

TMDLID

WB SegID

ReachID

WQSEvents

Reach ID

WQSID

303(d)List ID

STORET

Events

Reach ID

Agency/Station ID

Agency/Station ID

GRTS

Events

Reach ID

WBSeg ID+ CauseReach

ID

9

The NHD Framework and Other EPA Initiatives

• Reinventing Environmental Information (REI) Data Standards

• Locational Data Improvement Project (LDIP)

• EPA’s Information Integration Initiative (I3)

10

Reinventing Environmental Information Data Standards

• Facility Identification Data Standard

• Latitude/Longitude Data Standard– Point location/documentation

• Geo-Locational Data Standard– Under “development”– To support linear and polygon features

NEW!

11

Locational Data Improvement Project (LDIP)

• Gather existing latitude/longitude point coordinates (with metadata)

• Encourage High Quality, Well-Documented Future Collections

• High Quality Coordinates critical for Geo-Referencing Activities

12

EPA’s Information Integration Initiative (I3)

• Demonstrating Integration through Geography – “Window to my Environment”

• Geo-referencing framework supports place-based integration of information

IV.

13

Summary

• Geo-Referencing of Water Program information

• Query / Modeling Capabilities

• Databases Access and Maps can be Dynamic

• Systems Integration using the Geo-Referencing Framework

• Data Standards are in place and new standards are under development

• Geo-Referencing supports the Agency goal of placed-based integration of information

14