Catawba Wateree Water Management Group 2015 Annual Report

Water Quality Phase III Data Needs Assessment Report

The purpose of this effort was to identify significant users of Catawba-Wateree water quality data, define user needs, and review the capabilities of the existing platform as well as new data management platforms to select a data management platform to best meet the needs of the surveyed organizations.

Feedback from a potential-user survey and workshop discussions showed there is a strong desire for a regional water quality data platform and that abundant water quality data is available.  Important features identified for a water quality data platform include report generation, ability to create data plots based on custom queries, data download capability, geospatial visualization, and statistical analysis.  Survey participants also emphasized the potential usefulness of a data platform as a communication tool to alert other users of spills and other infrequent events.

It was recommended that CWWMG begin a phased development of a water quality data platform based on Microsoft’s Power BI toolset.