The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate WaterML2.0 – part 2: Ratings, Gaugings and Sections Standard.
WaterML2.0 represents an initiative within the joint World Meteorological Organization (WMO) / OGC Hydrology Domain Working Group to address standards development and interoperability of hydrological information systems at an international level. The first part of WaterML2.0 focused on a standard information model, and an XML encoding derived from that model, for time series of hydrological observations.
The candidate WaterML2.0 – part 2: Ratings, Gaugings and Sections Standard describes an information model for exchanging rating tables, gauging observations and river sections.
Rating tables, often represented as rating curves, are mathematical relationships allowing conversion from a physical phenomena to an estimate of a related phenomena; the captured relationship represents an approximation of a physical relationship. The most commonly employed rating tables in hydrology are stage-discharge rating curves, which allow for estimates of the volumetric flow rate of water at a point in a river. Rating curves are developed from multiple observations – often termed gaugings – of stage and flow at a particular measuring location.
WaterML2.0 part 2 has been submitted by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, USGS, Aquatic Informatics, KISTERS and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
The documents for the candidate OGC WaterML2.0 – part 2: Ratings, Gaugings and Sections Standard are available for review and comment at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/132. This candidate standard includes a platform independent UML model and XML encoding.
The OGC is an international consortium of more than 500 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.