Addressing FAIR Challenges in Serving the Bureau of Reclamation's Weather, Water, and Water-Related Data

The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) manages water supplies throughout the western United States, serving water to 31 million people and generating hydropower for 3.5 million U.S. homes. Through performance of its mission, Reclamation generates large volumes of water data that can benefit society and promote commerce when published in accordance with FAIR principles. Reclamation's water data describe many aspects of water management, including weather observations; reservoir operations; water deliveries; hydropower generation; water quality monitoring, plant and animal species and habitats observations; water management infrastructure locations and features; and many types of water resource analysis and modeled data products. Reclamation faces many challenges in meeting the FAIR ideals of this session, particularly related to facilitating transparency, data discoverability, and helping users understand data contexts; all while satisfying evolving developments in internal data generation, information technology, and information security.

Since 2015, Reclamation has sought to modernize its data publishing systems, responding to Administration priorities, federal policy, and evolving legal requirements to publish data in a more "open" paradigm featuring modern, machine-readable formats and data access portals offering web-services. Reclamation's response has included development of the Reclamation Water Information System (2017) and the successor, all-encompassing, Reclamation Information Sharing Environment (RISE).

This presentation will focus on the RISE system, summarizing contents and features, and highlighting how development addresses several issues discussed in this session, including data transparency (via internal publishing governance), data discovery (via catalog, data storage, and portal design), and improving users' understanding about data context for their applications (via metadata design).