Water Use
Water use includes measurements of volumes of water pertaining to a place or type of use. Some types of details captured within water use datasets include…
Withdrawals
Diversions
Consumptive use
Discharge
Return flows
Transfers (e.g., interbasin, water rights)
Wastewater discharge
Reused wastewater
Point of diversion (incl. details about type of diversion - well, spring, surface water)
Discussions with WaDE
The Water Data Exchange Program (WaDE) is working on data standards related to water use information. Notes from presentation by Adel Abdallah and Ryan James (as well as slides shared) are captured below.
Why WaDE?
“state primacy is fundamental to a sustainable water future”
need a strategy for coupling state-level data to answer regional questions about water use/quality
WaDE’s creation was stimulated by Sandia and few other agencies
WaDE 2.0 includes a central database to query/map data in a centralized system on the cloud. Agreed-upon metadata and vocabularies across the Councils' members and with USGS.
How can WaDE help state agencies?
Controlled vocabulary - harvested terms across the West (e.g., “Beneficial use” is defined differently across terms)
resource to learn from what other states are doing on water data/sharing
potential funding to western states' agencies (currently working with NM on digitizing water rights info)
technical support
have a use case repository → have a template that they can help us populate.
https://www.wade.westernstateswater.org/search-use-cases/
shared some examples from their ongoing work on capturing water rights across states
another example is aggregate water use data
have info from Utah, CA, WY, NM, and TX (by county consumption use or basin-wide consumption use)
states sometime also have custom spatial measurements
looking at different front end visualizations
ideally, estimates would be at the HUC-level but work with whatever the states provides
Next Steps for WaDE
Can track WaDE progress on GitHub → beta release to partners/public in Fall 2020/2021
support WaDE data interoperability with USGS and IOW Geoconnex hydro features
Sensor Things Mapping of NM Water Use Data
The table below summarizes mapping of current entries within the NM Water Use dataset onto the SensorThings framework.
Table 2: The STA data model definitions and example mappings to NM water use data
| SensorThings Entity | Description | Water Use Data for NM Example: CKAN Dataset Note: text in green indicates information collected from the data SME. |
---|---|---|---|
Metadata | Location | A unique coordinate or area on the surface of the earth. Polygon and multipolygon geometries can be Locations if desired | CN=county code; COUNTY RVB=river basin; Relevant shapefile here GWB=ground water basin. Relevant shapefile here (also have state-level values) |
Thing | Some real-world entity with which one or more Sensors are associated | CN 25. Pecos RVB | |
Datastream | A collection of Observations about an ObservedProperty produced by a Sensor associated with a Thing | Time series (every 5 years) | |
Datastream/observationType | The type of observation, codified in the Observations and Measurements data standard. Types include Categorical (defined text), Count (integer), Measurement (continuous number), Observation (free text), and TruthObservation (True/False) | Measurement | |
Datastream/unitOfMeasurement | A three-item definition of the unit of measurement, including its name, symbol, and link to the definition (preferably to one provided in an established ontology such as http://unitsofmeasure.org/ucum.html or http://qudt.org/) | ac-ft; gallons; % | |
Sensor | The procedure used to provide a Datastream. Can be a particular data recording device model, or a defined procedure followed by a human observer. If applicable, a specific instance (e.g. a sensor model and serial number) | Data Synthesis Some data collected from WATERS/meters, while others are self-reported. More details are shared within report: https://www.ose.state.nm.us/WUC/wucTechReports/2015/pdf/2015 WUR final_05142019.pdf | |
ObservedProperty | The raw or processed phenomenon (quantitative or qualitative) being measured for the Datastream. Preferably including a link to a definition provided by an established ontology or controlled vocabulary such as the ODM2 Controlled Vocabularies or http://qudt.org/) | Population = number, % GPCD=gallons per capita per day; WSW=withdrawal, surface water; (ac-ft) WGW=withdrawal, ground water; (ac-ft) TW = withdrawal, total (ac-ft) MSW= percent of surface water withdrawals measured; MGW=percent of groundwater withdrawals measured; MTW=percent of total withdrawals that were measured TFSW=total farm withdrawal, surface water CLSW=surface water conveyance losses from stream or reservoir to farm headgate TPWSW=total project withdrawals, surface water TPWGW=total project withdrawals, ground water Acreage (land irrigated) | |
OPTIONAL: FeatureOfInterest | The real-world feature that the Observations are about. This may or many not be different from the Location where the Thing on which the Sensor is mounted. Can include a JSON-formatted point location or a polygon or collections thereof. | For Livestock: User (e.g., Cattle, Chickens, etc.) For Reservoir: CAPACITY=total storage capacity (acre-feet); SAS=surface area at spillway elevation; SAA=surface area, average; EGR=gross evaporation rate in feet/year; R=rainfall in feet/year; ENR=net evaporation rate in feet/year For Power: User (e.g., PNM, Xcel, …), Power Generated (MWH) For Domestic: WEC = water exchange code For Tables: Category (PWS, Domestic, …) For Table 7: WWC = water withdrawal code; WEC = water exchange code For Table 8: T=type of irrigation system, i.e., drip (D), flood (F), or sprinkler (S); ASWO=acreage irrigated with surface water only; AGWO=acreage irrigated with ground water only; ASWC=surface water component of acreage irrigated with combined water, i.e., both surface and ground water; AGWC=ground water component of acreage irrigated with combined water; TAI=total acreage irrigated; For Table 12: T=type of irrigation system, i.e., drip (D), flood (F), or sprinkler (S); CIRSW=consumptive irrigation requirement for acreage irrigated with surface water (FT); CIRGW=consumptive irrigation requirement for acreage irrigated with ground water (FT); ASWO=acreage irrigated with surface water only; AGWO=acreage irrigated with ground water only; ASWC=surface water component of acreage irrigated with combined water, i.e., both surface and ground water; AGWC=ground water component of acreage irrigated with combined water; TAI=total acreage irrigated; EF=on-farm irrigation efficiency (%); EC=off-farm conveyance efficiency (%); Ep=project efficiency (%); | |
Data | Observation | A single measurement value including the result, time values, and other metadata. Information on the ObservedProperty that was measured by what Sensor is provided by the Datastream these observations are in. Features of Interest are linked for each observation as well. Observations are linked to (collected in) Datastreams | Volume or Rate Population (Table 1) Acreage (Tables 9-11) |
Observation/result | The actual measured value, with valid values defined in observationType and units defined in unitsOfMeasurement, both provided by Datastream | GPCD (10) Pop (1,916) WSW (4.29) WGW (17.17) TW (284,157) MSW (93.24%) MGW (82.97%) MTW (85.38%) TFSW (9395) CLSW (5632) TPWSW (15027) TPWGW (67684) | |
Observation/phenomenonTime | The date+time (or interval) in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DDT:HH:MM:SS-Z) when the observation occured | 2015-12-31:23:59:59 | |
OPTIONAL: Observation/resultTime | The date+time that the result was generated. May be the same as phenomenonTime | May 2019 | |
OPTIONAL: Observation/validTime | The date+time interval during which the Observation can be used (often used for provisional values that are replaced by QA/QC’d observations) | calendar year 2015 | |
OPTIONAL: Observation/resultQuality | A description of the result Quality. Will vary according to agency practice. Can use ODM2 controlled vocabulary for data quality types as a guide. | Data quality checks were conducted to remove duplicates and irrelevant entries prior to generating water use totals |