Subject:

Hundreds of thousands of water samples are collected on waterways across the United States each year, destined for a lonely existence as a laboratory tribute to wasted potential. Each tells a story about the waterway health and its ability to handle stress from never-ending development, agriculture, contamination, drought, flooding, and changing seasons. If those data were available to be examined comprehensively by any scientific observer, the wasted potential would become potential energy. It could provide a more accurate and complete foundation for making decisions that affect waterways and the wildlife, people, and industries that depend on them. Those decisions can be as simple as finding a good fishing hole or as complicated as preserving an entire ecosystem. Lonely sample data is fragmented, compartmentalized, or even kept completely out of reach, severely limiting our ability to understand, manage, and protect these critical elements of our natural world.

Our team of water professionals from federal, state, and local governments and nonprofits decided it was time to give the public better and easier access to sample data, starting with our Savannah and Ogeechee River basins. Using ArcGIS Hub, this cross-agency collaborative developed Know Your River, a powerful aggregation tool that collates data from more than 40 sources into one interactive, geospatial interface. Know Your River is useful, intuitive, and powerful. Although it was designed for a distinct geographic region, our team sees it as a catalyst for change. It can be scaled up or down to fit the needs of other waterways around the world and help end the scourge of lonely sample data and its wasted potential.

About Speaker:

Tonya Bonitatibus is the executive director of Savannah Riverkeeper, where she strives to protect the health and vibrancy of the Savannah River in South Carolina and Georgia..