Water-resources data in Ohio are collected and maintained by many agencies throughout the State. Access to these data is generally available; however, a single repository of information to review data types, coverages, and formats was not present before installation of this Web site and database.

In 2002, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) received a grant from the Ohio EPA 319(h) Nonpoint Source Program and other state agencies to develop this metadata database of ground-water data in Ohio. The specific objectives of this work were to identify, characterize, and document ground-water data available in Ohio and to develop a Web site to serve this information to the public. Although the project was originally designed to only serve information on ground-water data, the database and Web site were recently expanded to include all types of water-resources data.

The general approach was to convene a group of stakeholders, including all levels of government, private consulting firms, academia, and research facilities, to establish the approach, methods, and results of the data-compilation effort. There were two important conclusions of the stakeholder group: 1. the database should contain only metadata and not the data themselves because the logistics of a single database to house all of Ohio’s water data was deemed to be beyond our resources, and 2. the entry and maintenance of metadata entries should remain the responsibility of the data owners.

As of June 2007, the database contained approximately 850 records describing agency databases, GIS datasets, publications, hard-copy files, and internal digital datasets. Data owners regularly check and update their records to ensure the relevance and timeliness of the data contained herein.

USGS home page || USGS Water Resources Information home page
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer: Ralph Haefner, U.S. Geological Survey, Columbus, Ohio (614) 430-7709, rhaefner@usgs.gov
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Last update: 07/20/2007
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