Panel Moderator: Jack Hampson
National Water Resource Technologies Program, PBS&J

Panelists:

Jack Dangermond
President, ESRI (also keynote speaker)

Dr. David Maidment
CUAHSI HIS Principal Investigator
Center for Research in Water Resources-University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas

James R. Cameron
Divison Director, GIS & Web Development
South Florida Water Management District
West Palm Beach, Flordia

Katherine Lins
Chief, Office of Water Information
Water Resources Division, USGS
Reston, Virginia

Tommy Dewald
NHDPlus Program Manager
USEPA Office of Water
Washington, D.C.

Sharing their vision of what is needed to meet water resources challenges in the coming decade, a panel of leading professionals and researchers spanning regional and federal government, industry, and academia come together for a strategic discussion.  

What is possible with new and emerging information technologies to help us respond effectively and creatively to those challenges?  The panel discussion will tie to the plenary address by Jack Dangermond on the kind of information framework needed to handle the diverse and complex requirements of water resources management. 

What needs are shared by the inter-related challenges facing water supply, water quality, flood risk, environmental monitoring, protection, and restoration in a context of water/energy tradeoffs, climate change and uncertainty?.

The Florida Arc Hydro Experience: Where Do We Go From Here?

Organizer - Sandra Fox
St. Johns River Water Management District, Palatka, FL

Moderator – Dean Djokic
ESRI, Redlands, CA

Panelists

David Maidment, Center for Research in Water Resources-University of Texas at Austin
CUAHSI HIS Principal Investigator, Austin, TX

Gordon McClung, Southwest Florida Water Management District, Brooksville, FL

James Cameron, South Florida Water Management District, Palatka, FL

Chris Mundy, St. Johns River Water Management District, Palatka, FL

Alan Foley, Jones Edmunds, Gainesville, FL

Stephen Bourne, PBS&J, Atlanta, GA

Khan Boupha, Jones Edmunds, Tampa, FL,

Management of the unique hydrologic systems in Florida requires interaction across multiple agencies and professional disciplines. Public, private, and academic entities all play roles in managing Florida's water. Business drivers, staff, infrastructure, and organization may differ between entities but they are all linked by an interest in water management. The Arc Hydro data model has provided an effective yet unrestrained standard to facilitate development, storage, analysis, and communication of water resources data. Considerable effort has been expended by the Florida Arc Hydro community (primarily by or for Florida’s five Water Management Districts) to implement variations on the "standard" Arc Hydro data model to support hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, water quality modeling, flood hazard mapping, watershed management and other functions. Two groups, the Florida Arc Hydro Working Group (FAHWG) and the Florida Arc Hydro Users Group (FLAHUG), carry out ongoing collaborative efforts involving Arc Hydro in Florida. This panel will be composed of members from FAHWG and FLAHUG discussing background and status updates for current Arc Hydro implementations in Florida. The discussion will focus on technical insights, lessons learned in the course of the implementations and perhaps more importantly, what the future goals and activities of the two groups should be as a statewide effort.

Panelists

Jeff Simley, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO, Program Lead for NHD

Tommy Dewald, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington D.C., Program Lead for NHD

Brian Sanborn, U.S. Forest Service, Corvallis, OR, Agency Lead for NHD

Dan Wickwire, Bureau of Land Management, Portland, OR, Agency Lead for NHD

Mark Olsen, Minesota Pollution Control Agency, St. Paul, MN, State NHD Lead

Ricardo Lopez-Torrijos, New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany, NY, StateNHD Lead

The National Hydrography Dataset is now over eight years old. Throughout this time there has been great growth with completion of 1:24,000-scale coverage, the NHDPlus, the establishment of a working data stewardship program, and hundreds of applications that have applied the NHD to hydrology, resource management, pollution control, and fisheries biology. Six perspectives are presented on the current state of the NHD in terms of successes and challenges, the short-term objectives to make the dataset fully functional for current technology, and the long-term strategy that will evolve the data to meet the needs of GIS for many years to come. Each panelist has been highly involved in the NHD program for many years and brings a wealth of first-hand knowledge to the discussion.