Federating hydrogeological data to visualise Victoria's groundwater Peter Dahlhaus Andrew Macleod Helen Thompson Office of Deputy Vice Chancellor (Researrch) University of Ballarat, Australia Email p.dahlhaus@ballarat.edu.au The Visualising Victoria's Groundwater (VVG) research project brings together a unique collaboration of regional, state, national and international organisations with the common aim of federating groundwater databases in Victoria, Australia. The $2.23M project led by the University of Ballarat uses similar methods to the Groundwater Information Network developed by Natural Resources Canada. The project addresses many of the issues associated with data capture, aggregation, transmission, storage, access, re-use and curation that are identified in the national eResearch infrastructure priorities as essential components in Australia's ongoing research success. In particular, the project provides access to research significant data held outside research institutions by developing the research tools for data linking, analysis and visualisation. The project builds on UB Spatial (www.ubspatial.com.au), an interoperable web-GIS portal and groundwater database that has been developed with the collaborative support of catchment management authorities, government departments and municipalities, all of whom are end-users of the service. The groundwater data includes time-series watertable levels, aquifer characteristics, physical and chemical parameters, lithology and stratigraphy, photographs and documents. A key feature of the system is that data managers maintain custodianship of their data and databases, but allow interoperable exchange by adopting the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards for groundwater data exchange (GroundwaterML). More efficient research practices and significant productivity gains are anticipated as a result of deploying the federated data. There is also potential for broader benefit through the application of the developed technology in virtually federating other environmental, social and economic datasets.

1. Peter Dahlhaus
Andrew MacLeod
Helen Thompson

2. Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater project
Use high-speed broadband to:
 Distribute groundwater bore data
 Visualise groundwater data
 Model groundwater systems on-the-fly
A collaboration of 13 partner organisations
An interoperative web-GIS
that federates groundwater
data from disparate sources
to assist water managers
make the correct choices for
the sustainable use of a
precious resource

3. Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater project
Design Principles
 Data resides with the data managers
 Intuitive to use (e.g. Google Earth)
 Include vector & raster data
 Allow data downloads (subject to data manager’s consent)
 Link spatial data to original documents and images
 Link spatial data to real time data (data loggers, webcams)
 Capable of generating models on the fly
 Allow users to add, edit or update data (subject to QA/QC)
 Spatial data and models should be credible to the user

4. Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater project
System architecture

5. Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater project
Interoperability is based on the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards for
Geography Markup Language (GML), specifically GroundwaterML
http://ngwd-bdnes.cits.rncan.gc.ca/service/api_ngwds/en/gwml.html

6. www.vvg.org.au

7. Bore data from 1884
to present day

9. Warning on data
accuracy and
completeness
(disclaimer)

10. Bores from
4 different
databases

11. Adjust layer
Geology layer via WMS transparency

12. Predictions of aquifer top,
bottom and thickness
Layer
reordering

13. Predictions of watertable elevation,
depth to watertable, bore yield and
groundwater salinity

14. Links to
bore data

15. Bore location & construction
Aquifer parameters
Waterlevel monitoring
Groundwater chemistry
Bore lithology
Stratigraphy
Links to:
 Photos
 Documents
 Maps & sections

16. Groundwater chemistry
Waterlevel monitoring

17. Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater project
Depth to watertable
Future developments
Tools that provide (on-the-fly):
 Groundwater bore graphics
 Chemistry plots
 Watertable animations
 Cross sections of aquifers
 Three-dimensional models of
groundwater systems
Moorabool River aquifers

18. www.vvg.org.au