4.1 An open source library for clean, simple and fast access to public hydrology and climatology data

Tuesday, 8 January 2013: 11:00 AM
Room 12B (Austin Convention Center)
Andrew Wilson, Texas Water Development Board, Austin, TX; and D. Pothina

There are many high quality hydrology and climatology datasets available over the web, but these datasets are usually structured uniquely with distinct querying mechanisms and delivery formats. Liberating data from their native structures is often tedious and error-prone. This is why we created Ulmo, an open source python library for clean, simple and fast access to public hydrology and climatology data.

Ulmo retrieves and parses datasets from the web and returns simple python data structures that can be easily pulled into more sophisticated tools for analysis. Working directly over the network is often impractical, particularly with large datasets, so Ulmo also provides fast local caches. Data can be initially downloaded once and updates harvested as needed, conserving bandwidth and time.

Ulmo currently supports CUAHSI WaterOneFlow services, United States Geologic Survey National Water Information System web services and data from the National Climatic Data Center's Global Summary of the Day, with support for more datasets on the way.->

- Indicates paper has been withdrawn from meeting
- Indicates an Award Winner