U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey USGS Mobile Water Data Mark D. Hamill Briefing for Community for Data Integration November 13, 2013

What is USGS Mobile Water Data?  A mobile-friendly web site  Focus on presenting NWIS-acquired USGS water data to mobile devices in the field  No data collection capabilities  Provides current conditions data only  Graphs show water conditions at a site for the last 7 days 

Feature demonstration  Permission to use current location  Distinguish site types by teardrop colors  Matches NWIS Mapper  Mapper navigation  Search box on mapper  Site detail popup and link  Search by site number  List of sites on the map  Adding, removing and listing of favorite sites  Link to NWISWeb

Feature demonstration  List of parameters for a site  Current conditions  7-day graph for site/parameter  Shows sites with measurements in last seven days only  Policy may change before release  Sites only appear at closer in scales

Mobile technology employed  Mobile web  Frameworks  jQuery Mobile  ESRI Javascript API Core  Mobile sensors  Optionally can use the mobile device’s GPS to find nearby USGS current conditions water sites

Mobile technology employed  APIs  HTML 5 (not quite an API, but a common platform)  Server side resources  Three tier architecture  Apache web servers (presentation)  ESRI API Javascript Core (presentation)  ESRI Base map and geocoding services (presentation)  Glassfish application servers (business logic) (waterservices.usgs.gov is used to acquire data)  MySQL database servers (water data)

Technical rationale  Mobile web chosen because…  Faster to market  Not dependent on operating system  Nothing to install, just need a browser  Alternatives  Hybrid approach unknown by team at the time  Platform-specific apps would require expertise in mobile toolkits for iOS and Android, and learning Java and Objective C++  USGS Mobile standards were still being developed

Technical rationale  Evaluation  Project was approved by the NWISWeb User Group and the NWIS Executive Steering Committee  NWISWeb User Group tested the site  Delivered in August 2013  How might we do things differently now?  Hybrid toolkits would be evaluated to possibly “appify” the mobile web site  Would allow an app to be installed

Collections  Quality assurance is provided by NWIS software in USGS water science centers  Only quality assured data is sent for public use  Current conditions data is considered provisional  User acknowledges this upon entering the website  Open standards  HTML 5  CSS  Javascript

Why was mobile web selected?  USGS needed a mobile product for the public in FY13  A mobile web site was already in the planning phase  “Low hanging fruit” for USGS  More than 50% of users surveyed in 2011 wanted a mobile-friendly water data site  Nothing to install  About 1/3 of traffic to waterdata.usgs.gov is from mobile devices

State of the art technology  ESRI JavaScript API core provides easy integration of fast, cartographically pleasing basemaps  Use of HTML 5 ensures high interoperability and latest features  Allows list of favorite sites to be stored on the device  Integrates GPS seamlessly  Responsive web design  Will size screen optimally for size of device

Potential usages  Hydrologists in the field have an easy way to see if a site is down or whether a visit is warranted  Citizens have insight into boating, canoeing or kayaking opportunities nearby  State and county local safety authorities has access to current conditions while in the field  Academic, commercial and non-profits  Monitoring reservoir levels

System Architecture NWISWeb Database (timeseries data) ESRI basemap and geocoding services Application Server (Data Services) Web Server (m.waterdata.us gs.gov)

Development Team  David Coyle - Project Manager and Developer  Janell Fry - HTML Developer  Martyn Smith (NY WSC) – ESRI Mapper  Lenny Orzol (OR WSC) – HTML Developer  Scott McFarlane (CO WSC) – Data services