Welcome to the World of Environmental Data Management


I've been working in the environmental and water resources consulting business for nearly 20 years and became interested in data management early on. Much of the business world has been driven by the information technology age, learning to make decisions from billions of records and terrabites of data. Sadly, the environmental industry remains generally content with spreadsheets and PDF files, losing the ability to interpret and understand our observations of the air, land and water. In 2011 I am going to maintain this blog with my observations and opinions relating to environmental data management and perhaps generate some dialogue on how we, as an industry, can do better.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Water For People - FLOW (Field Level Operations Watch)

It looks like it might be easier for some third-world communities to learn about their drinking water systems than for those of us in North America.  Water For People has introduced a visual, open-source mobile-based data monitoring and mapping tool called Field Level Operations Watch (FLOW).   Check out the link and test out the Google Earth / Google Maps.

http://www.waterforpeople.org/programs/field-level-operations-watch.html

The Province of Ontario has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade successfully implementing the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act.  I believe that this effort has been successful.  Our drinking water is safer, there is better public awareness of the need to protect our water, and policies and programs are being implemented for us to protect the quality and quantity of our future drinking water supplies.  I suspect the Ministry of Ontario has developed a very comprehensive database of information relating to our drinking water systems.  However, none of this information is as transparently available as the Water for People FLOW initiative.
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