HIS Around the Web...

Last week, two very cool HIS related articles came to our attention here at CUAHSI. One is in response to a National Water Quality Monitoring Council webinar delivered by Executive Director Rick Hooper; the other highlights research being conducted by the Shale Network, which is using HIS to store and analyze data. Follow the links below to check them out...

• Info system links hydrological researchers to open source data across the U.S. 

• Citizen Scientists Help the Shale Network Address Fracking Concerns

2012 in Review: Data Sources Added to the HIS Catalog

The number of data services registered in HIS continued to grow in 2012 with 26 new web services registered with the central catalog. These new services include data from university researchers, citizen science organizations, as well as federal agencies. Here are a few notable additions...

Shale Network - As I highlighted in a previous post, the Shale Network project is investigating the potential impact of natural gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region. The database is being developed from multiple sources with multiple partners; CUAHSI is participating through hosting and helping to maintain the database as well as through providing training and support in using HIS.

Kansas State Daily Weather Data - This service, from researchers at KSU, includes daily weather data collected at 14 sites throughout the state of Kansas. The observed variables in this database include net radiation, temperature (air & soil), wind speed & direction, evapotranspiration, and precipitation.

4 New NASA Services - NASA has registered 4 new services from the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS).

• NLDAS Hourly Mosaic Data
• GLDAS 3-hourly Noah Data
• NLDAS Hourly Primary Forcing Data
• NLDAS Hourly NOAH Data

Ipswich River Watershed Association RiverWatch Program - Another service that I have previously highlighed is the IRWA RiverWatch program, which has citizen scientists collect data to monitor the health of the Ipswich River (located in Northeast Massachusetts). The observations published in HIS include dissolved oxygen and water temperature. 

*New* Recommended Release of HydroDesktop

HydroDesktop 1.5.12 is now the recommended release.

CUAHSI and the HydroDesktop development team have officially designated version 1.5.12 as the new recommended release. This new release comes after 9 months of work by the development team to incorporate new features and functionality in addition to improving the performance and stability of HydroDesktop.

Here is a rundown of some of the new features in HydroDesktop...

Additional HydroDesktop plugins can now be downloaded from the Extension Manager.

The Extension Manager - The new installer for 1.5.12 includes less plugins then previous versions, but is also more customizable then previous versions because it allows you to download only the additional features that you need. For example, both the Geostatisical Tools and HydroModeler have been removed. These tools, however, are both available through the Extension Manager which enables download and installation of additional plugins. To do browse available downloads, simply click File and select Extension Manager.

Time Series Import - Users are now able to import time series data into HydroDesktop. To do this, select Import on the Table tab and navigate to the file location. Valid file extensions include .csv, .xls, .txt, and .xml (for data in WaterML).

The contents of attribute tables are now searchable (by typing in the blank form near the top of the table) and sortable (by clicking on a field name).

Searching & Sorting in the Attribute Table - Fields in the Attribute Table are now searchable and sortable. Open an attribute table for a layer by right clicking on the layer in the Legend and selecting View Attribute Table. The table is also accessible by highlighting the layer of interest and clicking View Attribute Table on the Map tab. To sort the items based on a field, click on the field name at the top of the table. To search a field for specific items, click the blank text box and begin typing - the table will begin to filter as you type.

The User Guide button in HydroDesktop now launches the User Guide that is a part of this site.

New User Guide Format - Lastly, we have a new format for the User Guide - this site! To access the User Guide from HydroDesktop, click the User Guide button on the Help tab. If you are not connected to the internet, HydroDesktop will launch a static version of the help documents in a .pdf document.