HIS Glossary and Acronyms List

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Modified on 2009/09/24 11:37 by kimschreuders Categorized as Uncategorized

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1 - Symbol and A thru F
2 - G
3 - H
4 - I thru N
5 - O thru P
6 - Q thru T
7 - U thru Z

1 - Symbol and A thru F¶

Term	HIS Defined	Definition
3rd party Web Services	Yes	A web service that produces WaterML from a data source other than a standard ODM. One types of WaterOneFlow web service.
ACWI	No	Advisory Committee on Water Information - An advisory committee for USGS. Purpose is to improve water information for decision making about natural resources management and environmental protection. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum No. 92-01 designates the Department of the Interior, through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as the lead agency. This organization has several subgroups including the National Water Quality Monitoring Council which produces the Water Quality Data Element List. See http://acwi.gov/index.html for more information.
Aquaveo	No	A consulting/software development company that specializes in visualizing water. Kepler's software solutions provide tools to engineers for modeling groundwater and surface-water hydrology and hydraulics. See http://www.aquaveo.com/ for more info.
ArcHydro	No	A data model for water resources. An ArcHydro toolset is available for ArcGIS desktop applications.
ASTM	No	American Society for Testing and Materials
AWRIS	No	Australian Water Resources Information System
CAS Registry	No	The world's largest substance database with over 46 million substance and 60 million sequence records. The CAS Registry is produced by CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service), a division of the American Chemical Society. CAS Registry Numbers (often referred to as CAS RNs or CAS Numbers) are unique identifiers for chemical substances. See http://www.cas.org/expertise/cascontent/registry/index.html for more information.
CF Metadata	No	A standard vocabulary for the Climate and Forecast domain called Climate and Forecast (CF) Metadata. Includes a list of standard parameter names for the sub-areas of: Atmospheric Chemistry, Atmosphere Dynamics, Carbon Cycle, Cloud, Hydrology, Ocean Dynamics, Radiation, Sea Ice, and Surface. See http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-standard-names for more information.
Concept Tree	Yes	A tree structure of searchable concepts used for data discovery.
Concept Network	Yes	Similar to a Concept Tree except each child concept can have more than one parent concept.
CSML	No	Climate Science Modelling Language - A standards-based data model and GML (Geography Markup Language) application schema for atmospheric and oceanographic data with associated software tools developed at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. http://csml.badc.rl.ac.uk/
CUAHSI	No	Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science - See http://www.cuahsi.org/
CUAHSI Water Data Federation	Yes	The group of all of the Water Data Services registered at HIS Central.
CUAHSI Water Data Service	Yes	One of the services in the CUAHSI Water Data Federation. Consists of a data store, most commonly an ODM database and a set of WaterOneFlow web services. Also see Water Data Service.
~~Curated Metadata Layer~~	Yes	dtarb suggests to discontinue this term. It is superceded by Thematic Dataset
CyberIntegrater	No	Software from NCSA. http://isda.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cyberintegrator/
CZO	No	Critical Zone Observatory
DASH	Yes	"Data Access System for Hydrology", Map-based web server application that is part of both HIS Central and each HIS Server.
Data Cart	Yes	A list of data series metadata. Useful for identifying parameters for a GetValues call.
Data Series	Yes	A set of numerical values (each associated with a datetime) that describe a given variable at a given location over a given time period, using a given method, measured by a given source, and characterized by a given quality control level. This terminology arises from the Observations Data Model. See also the definition of Time Series.
Data Value	Yes	A single observation that results in a data value collected using a single type of measurement, at a single place and time. In ODM this value is either a single real number, or a categorized value.
Digital Watershed	Yes	Data repository that contains an ODM, a grid store & a shapefile store.
End Point	No	An association between a binding and a network address, specified by a URI, that may be used to communicate with an instance of a web service. An end point indicates a specific location for accessing a web service using a specific protocol and data format.
EPA	No	Environmental Protection Agency - See http://www.epa.gov/ for more information.
ESMF	No	Earth System Modeling Framework - Software for building and coupling weather, climate, and related models. Managed by UCAR.

2 - G¶

Term	HIS Defined	Definition
GEO	No	The Group on Earth Observations (or GEO) is coordinating international efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Recognizing the need to link and expand Earth Observations systems, over 100 governments and leading international organizations have founded the Group on Earth Observations, or GEO, to coordinate the construction of a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) by the year 2015. GEO was established in February 2005 after the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries (G8) and three ministerial Earth Observation Summits each called for improving observation systems. See http://www.earthobservations.org for more information.
GeoSciML	No	Geological Sciences Markup Language
Geospatial Data Layer	Yes	Represents the geographic location of features, as well as attributes describing those features. Example implementations of a geospatial data layer include an ESRI shapefile of land use classification, and a Web Feature Service showing the location of water quality sampling stations. In these common implementations, the geospatial data layer is presented to the user in the form of a table, where each row in the table represents a unique geographic feature such as a sampling station. The row will be tied to a geographic representation such as a point, line, or polygon, and may also have attributes such as StationName to further describe the feature.
GEOSS	No	Global Earth Observation System of Systems - The Group on Earth Observations (or GEO) is coordinating international efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). This emerging public infrastructure is interconnecting a diverse and growing array of instruments and systems for monitoring and forecasting changes in the global environment. This “system of systems” supports policymakers, resource managers, science researchers and many other experts and decision-makers. See http://www.earthobservations.org/geoss.shtml for more information.
GetSeriesInBox	Yes	A method from the HIS Central web services for getting a list of the identifying parameters for a group of time series.
GetSiteInfo	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes a site number, and returns the site's metadata as an XML text.
GetSiteInfoObject	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes a site number, and returns the site's metadata as an object.
GetSites	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes an array of site numbers, and returns the site metadata for each one as an object for WaterOneFlow 1.0, and as XML text for WaterOneFlow 1.1.
GetSitesXml	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes an array of site numbers, and returns the site metadata for each one as XML text.
GetSitesObject	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes an array of site numbers, and returns the site metadata for each one as an object.
GetValues	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes a site number, a variable, a start date, and an end date, and returns a time series as XML text.
GetValuesObject	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes a site number, a variable, a start date, and an end date, and returns a time series as an object.
GetVariableInfo	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes a variable code, and returns the variable's name as an object.
GetVariableInfoObject	Yes	One method from a WaterOneFlow web service that takes a variable code, and returns the variable's siteName as an object.
GF	No	General Feature (Model)
GIS	No	Geographic Information System
GML	No	Geography Markup Language
GRDC	No	The Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) is a world-wide repository of river discharge data and associated metadata. It is an International data centre operating under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Established in 1988 to support the research on global and climate change, and integrated water resources management, the GRDC has been serving for twenty years successfully as a facilitator between the producers of hydrologic data and the international research community. GRDC is a key partner in a number of data collection and data management projects on a global scale. The GRDC is funded by the Federal Government of Germany and is located within the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG). See http://grdc.bafg.de for more information.
GWML	No	Groundwater Markup Language

3 - H¶

Term	HIS Defined	Definition
HDAS	Yes	Hydrologic Data Access System - an obsolete name for DASH.
HDWG	No	Hydrology Domain Working Group, a forum for collaboration and development of standatds for hydrological data formed by OGC and WMO.
HIS	No	Hydrologic Information System
HIS Central	Yes	The package of components of HIS whose domain is the entire HIS system. Primary components are: • HIS Central Registry • HydroSeek • HydroTagger • HIS Central Harvester • HIS Central Data Store (Database(s)/Ontology Files)
HIS Central Data Store	Yes	Consists of a database and a set of ontology files.
HIS Central Harvester	Yes	A component of HIS Central that periodically crawls the registered Water Web Services and records their metadata in the HIS Central Data Store.
HIS Central Registry	Yes	A web application at HIS Central that allows data publisher's to register their Water Data Services and all users to view info on the registered services.
HIS Central Sourcecode Repository	Yes
HIS Desktop	Yes	A data framework of HIS whose domain is a single user’s computer. The following components are in the process of being merged into HIS Desktop: • HydroExcel • HydroGet • HydroLink • FetchWaterML • HydroObjects
HIS Developer’s Wiki	Yes	This wiki.
HIS HydroLink Development Website	Yes
HIS Server	Yes	The package of components of HIS whose domain is a single water data service. Primary components are: • ODM Database • ODM WaterOneFlow Webservices • ODM Tools • ODM Data Loader • ODM Streaming Data Loader
HIS System	Yes	The entire operational hydrologic information system. Consists of the following packages: • HIS Central • HIS Server • HIS Desktop
HIS User’s Forum	Yes
HRiB	Yes	HarmoniRIB, a database system for storing hydrologic data developed by the EU.
Hybrid Web Service	Yes	See Third-party Web Service
HydroSeek	Yes	A map-based web application for data discovery at HIS Central.
HydroTagger	Yes	A web application to assign variables to search concepts that runs out of HIS Central.
HydroViewer	Yes	Web application built by ESRI as part of the HIS System.

4 - I thru N¶

Term	HIS Defined	Definition
IOOS	No	Integrated Ocean Observing System - A federal, regional, and private-sector partnership working to enhance our ability to collect, deliver, and use ocean information. IOOS delivers the data and information needed to increase understanding of our oceans and coasts, so decision makers can take action to improve safety, enhance the economy, and protect the environment. http://ioos.gov/
INSPIRE	No	Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the Eropean Community
ISO	No	International Standatds Organization, an international standard setting organization that produces many standards relavant to hydrogology and data storage
ISO/TC 211	No	ISO/TC 211 standards catalogue
ITIS	No	Integrated Taxonomic Information System - An interagency effort to create a database with reliable information on species names and their hierarchical classification. The ITIS includes documented taxonomic information of flora and fauna from both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. See http://www.itis.gov/ for more information.
Jira	No	A brand of bug tracking software. Used by HIS as its primary bug tracking system.
Kepler	No	The Kepler Project is dedicated to furthering and supporting the capabilities, use, and awareness of the free and open source, scientific workflow application, Kepler. Kepler is designed to help scientists, analysts, and computer programmers create, execute, and share models and analyses across a broad range of scientific and engineering disciplines. Kepler can operate on data stored in a variety of formats, locally and over the internet, and is an effective environment for integrating disparate software components, such as merging "R" scripts with compiled "C" code, or facilitating remote, distributed execution of models. Using Kepler's graphical user interface, users simply select and then connect pertinent analytical components and data sources to create a "scientific workflow"—an executable representation of the steps required to generate results. The Kepler software helps users share and reuse data, workflows, and components developed by the scientific community to address common needs. Kepler is a Java-based system. See http://kepler-project.org/ for more information.
MDA	No	Model Driven Architecture - a software design approach for the development of software systems. It provides a set of guidelines for the structuring of specifications, which are expressed as models. Model-driven architecture is a kind of domain engineering, and supports model-driven engineering of software systems. It was launched by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 2001.
MSEF	No	Microsoft Entity Framework - a conceptual model used to define element structure, relationships and contraints. An instance of this conceptual moel can be built using a tool called the Entity Data Model, which is similar to UML. Mappings can be created to underlying storage mechanisms (databases, schema, etcl), allowing automatic generation from the conceptual model to a particular staorage type.
netCDF	No	network Common Data Form
NWQMC	No	National Water Quality Monitoring Council - A subgroup of the Advisory Committee on Water Information. One of their projects is a standard list of Water Quality Data Elements. See http://acwi.gov/methods/data_projects/index.html for more infomration.
Network	Yes	Deprecated term. For new applications, use the term "Water Data Service" instead. A Network is a single WaterOneFlow web service and its associated data store. A network identifier that indicates a specific network must be provided as part of the web service configuration. This is one of two identifiers that must be provided as part of a web service configuration; the other is Vocabulary. For more information see: Server, Network and Vocabulary Naming System.

5 - O thru P¶

Term	HIS Defined	Definition
O&M	No	The OpenGIS® Observations and Measurements Encoding Standard (O&M) defines an abstract model and an XML schema encoding for observations and it provides support for common sampling strategies. O&M also provides a general framework for systems that deal in technical measurements in science and engineering. This is one of the OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) suite of standards. See http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/om for more information.
ODM	Yes	Observation Data Model - the data model that underlies all of HIS.
ODM Data Loader	Yes
ODM Database	Yes	A database that follows ODM.
ODM Streaming Data Loader	Yes
ODM Tools	Yes
ODM Utilities	Yes
ODM WaterOneFlow Webservices	Yes
OGC	No	The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.® (OGC) is a non-profit, international, voluntary consensus standards organization that is leading the development of standards for geospatial and location based services. See http://www.opengeospatial.org/ for more information.
OMG	No	Object Management Group - OMG™ is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies, and an even wider range of industries. OMG’s modeling standards enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes. OMG’s middleware standards and profiles are based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA®) and support a wide variety of industries. http://www.omg.org
Ontology	No
OpenGIS	No	Abstract Specification
OpenMI	No	Protocol for communicating between models.
OpenMI Element Viewer	No

6 - Q thru T¶

Term	HIS Defined	Definition
SDI	No	Spatial Data Infrastructure
SensorML	No	Sensor Markup Language
Series Set	Yes	A set of geospatial or time series data grouped together for some purpose.
Series Set Catalog	Yes	A table that lists information about a thematic dataset for the purposes of (a) providing sufficient information that a Web Service can be issued to get the data, and (b) listing key summary information so that a user can assess what and how much data is contained in each theme.
SOS	No	Sensor Observation Service – an OGC standard. The OpenGIS® Sensor Observation Service Interface Standard (SOS) provides an API for managing deployed sensors and retrieving sensor data and specifically “observation” data. Whether from in-situ sensors (e.g., water monitoring) or dynamic sensors (e.g., satellite imaging), measurements made from sensor systems contribute most of the geospatial data by volume used in geospatial systems today. This is one of the OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) suite of standards. See http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/sos for more information.
SRS	No	Substance Registry Services (SRS) is the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) central system for information about substances that are tracked or regulated by EPA or other sources. It is the authoritative resource for basic information about chemicals, biological organisms, and other substances of interest to EPA and its state and tribal partners. See http://iaspub.epa.gov/sor_internet/registry/substreg/home/overview/home.do for more information.
Star Tree Viewer	No	The tree viewer that HIS uses to display the ontology.
STORET	No	The STOrage and RETrevial Database of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
SWE	No	The OGC's Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards enable developers to make all types of sensors, transducers and sensor data repositories discoverable, accessible and useable via the Web. See http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/markets-technologies/swe for more information.
Thematic Dataset	Yes	Depreciated Term. See Series Set. A set of geospatial or time series data grouped together for some purpose.
Thematic Dataset Catalog	Yes	Depreciated Term. See Series Set Catalog. A table that lists information about a thematic dataset for the purposes of (a) providing sufficient information that a Web Service can be issued to get the data, and (b) listing key summary information so that a user can assess what and how much data is contained in each theme.
Theme	Yes/No	Depreciated Term. The data that comprise a single geospatial layer or time series. For example a geospatial layer may comprise elevation values from a DEM for a watershed, while a time series may comprise the streamflow measured hourly at the outlet. Themes are used in GIS. This definition extends the idea to time series.
Third-party Web Service	Yes	A web service that produces WaterML from a data source other than a standard ODM. One types of WaterOneFlow web service.
Time Series	Yes	A set of numerical values (each associated with a datetime) that describe a given variable at a given location over a given time period. A time series may be further characterized by method, source, quality control level and data type. This terminology arises from the WaterOneFlow web service. See also the definition of Data Series.

7 - U thru Z¶

Term	HIS Defined	Definition
UK-EA-TS	No	The UK Environmental Agency developed he EA Time Series Data Exchange format (UK-EA-TS) to exchangea variety of sets of time-series data, primarily hydrologic data.
UML	No	Unified Modeling Language
URI	No	Uniform Resource Identifier - A string of characters used to identify or name a resource on the Internet.
URN	No	Uniform Resource Name
USGS	No	United States Geological Survey.
Vocabulary	Yes	A set of variable codes that are being managed by an organization. While this functionality has not yet been implemented, it is hoped that eventually this information can be used to automatically tag the variables. When configuring a WaterOneFlow web service, the default vocabulary identifier for that service must be selected. This is one of two identifiers that must be selected when installing a WaterOneFlow web service. The other one is: Network. For more information see: Server, Network and Vocabulary Naming System.
WaterOneFlow	Yes	A web service that produces WaterML. It includes the following methods: GetSiteInfo — Given a site number, this method returns the site's metadata as an XML text. GetSiteInfoObject — Given a site number, this method returns the site's metadata as an object. GetSites — Given an array of site numbers, this method returns the site metadata for each one as an object for WaterOneFlow 1.0, and as text for WaterOneFlow 1.1. GetSitesObject — Given an array of site numbers, this method returns the site metadata for each one as an object. Applies to WaterOneFlow 1.1. GetSitesXml — Given an array of site numbers, this method returns the site metadata for each one as XML text. Applies to WaterOneFlow 1.0 GetVariableInfo — Given a variable code, this method returns the variable's name as an object. GetVariableInfoObject — Given a variable code, this method returns the variable's siteName as an object. GetValues — Given a site number, a variable, a start date, and an end date, this method returns a time series as XML text. GetValuesObject — Given a site number, a variable, a start date, and an end date, this method returns a time series as an object.
W3C	No	World Wide Web Consortium
WATERS Network	No	A joint initiative among the environmental engineering and science, hydrologic and related Earth science, and social science research communities and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), aims to provide opportunities to advance our scientific understanding of water as an integrated resource and develop the national capability needed to predict water quality and quantity everywhere at all times. For more info see: http://www.watersnet.org/
WATERS Test Bed Sites	No	As part of the WATERS Network planning process, NSF has funded 11 WATERS Test Bed projects to test various aspects of observatory design and operation. These two-year projects will be developing technologies ranging from collection of data from floating sensors to determining optimal placement of real-time nitrate sensors. Test Bed sites are located in a range of environmental conditions from the high Sierra Nevada to urban Baltimore. The sites will act as beta test locations for the deployment of CUAHSI HIS project server capability that will enable the Test Beds to archive and publish their own data in a standardized relational database schema known as the Observations Data Model (ODM). For more information see: http://www.watersnet.org/wtbs/
Water Data Federation	Yes	See CUASHI Water Data Federation.
Water Data Service	Yes	A WaterOneFlow web service and it's associated data store.
Water Quality Data Elements List	No	A standard list of water quality parameters developed by the National Water Quality Monitoring Council which is part of an advisory group to the USGS. There is both a list and a user's manual for the list. See http://acwi.gov/methods/data_projects/index.html for more infomration.
WaterML	Yes	Water Markup Language; An XML schema for transmitting water data. Produced by WaterOneFlow web services.
WCS	No	Web Coverage Services – An OGC standard for serving geospatial "coverages". The term "grid coverages" typically refers to content such as satellite images, digital aerial photos, digital elevation data, and other phenomena represented by values at each measurement point. THREDDS services are web coverage services.
WDTF	No	Water Data Transmission Format – XML schema for water data transmission developed by the Austrailian government's Bureau of Meteorology.
Web Coverage Service	No	An OGC standard for serving geospatial "coverages". The term "grid coverages" typically refers to content such as satellite images, digital aerial photos, digital elevation data, and other phenomena represented by values at each measurement point.
Web Feature Service	No	An OGC standard for serving geographical features over the internet.
Web Map Service	No	An OGC standard for serving georeferenced map images over the internet.
Web Service	No	A Web service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. It has an interface described in a machine-processable format (specifically WSDL). Other systems interact with the Web service in a manner prescribed by its description using SOAP-messages, typically conveyed using HTTP with an XML serialization in conjunction with other Web-related standards.
WFS	No	Web Feature Services - An OGC standard for serving geographical features over the internet.
WISE	No	Water Information System for Europe
WMO	No	The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is the UN system's authoritative voice on the state and behaviour of the Earth's atmosphere, its interaction with the oceans, the climate it produces and the resulting distribution of water resources. See http://www.wmo.int for more information.
WMS	No	Web Map Services - An OGC standard for serving georeferenced map images over the internet.
WQX	No	Water Quality Exchange - A data exchange schema for partners to share ambient water quality data with the U.S. EPA for inclusion in it's STORET database.
WSDL	No	Web Service Definition Language
XHydro	No	An XML standard for transmission of water level data through web services for the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration. It goes slightly further in the it specifies an XML schema for the encoding of eneric times series, with an extension that is tailored specifically for water level and discharge data. It also contains a generic conceptual model from which other schemas can be created to address particular needs.
XMI	No	XML Metadata Interchange
XML	No	eXtensible Markup Language