NWIC and Water Data
National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC) is a Subordinate Office of Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India. Established in March 2018, NWIC is the repository of nation-wide water resource data. NWIC provides a single-window solution for comprehensive water data, creates standardized GIS-based water information systems, and disseminates hydro-meteorological data to support decision-making for integrated water resources management.
Vision of NWIC
Data as key driver for water governance and integrated water resources management to achieve water security for the country.
Mission of NWIC
To make water data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable through effective institutional governance and public digital infrastructure for the water sector.
Strategic Objectives of NWIC
The key strategic objectives are:
- (i) Data to enable IWRM to make India a water secure nation, providing reliable and adequate supply of clean water to citizens, agriculture, industry, environment and other needs.
- (ii) Data and advance computing technologies to minimize the impact of floods, droughts and other extreme events.
- (iii) Data sharing to encourage research, development and innovation in water sector.
- (iv) Data to develop water as an economic driver.
- (v) Data to enable public participation in water sector decision making.
Key Principles for Water Data Management
NWIC has adopted the following principles towards integrated, open and shared water data management in the country:
- (i) Water data is essential for efficient, equitable, sustainable, and resilient water planning and management.
- (ii) All water data produced for the public good should by default be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) for public use or authorized users.
- (iii) Commonly accepted data, metadata, and exchange standards should be adopted by water data producers to promote interoperability, efficiency, sharing, equity, and secondary uses of data.
- (iv) Control and responsibility over data are best maintained by data producers.
- (v) Data producers are responsible for sharing data of known quality and documenting essential metadata; data users are responsible for determining whether data are appropriate for specific purposes.
- (vi) Federated, distributed systems of interoperable public water data generally provide scalability and flexibility to meet the diverse needs of data producers and users.
Benefits of Integrated, Open and Shared Water Data
(i) A common foundation for decision-making
By providing a common foundation of facts, better availability and use of public data can reduce litigation, build trust, and support consensus-building between stakeholders.
(ii) Improved analysis allowing better planning and decision-making
Water data is required to assess whether water systems are being managed sustainably, and to guide real-time decisions, along with rapid forecasting of future conditions. Open, integrated and shared data reduces the time analysts spend locating, cleaning, and estimating data, allowing them to instead spend time and resources on analysis more directly related to management decisions and forecasting.
(iii) Increased precision across sectors and purposes
Better data improves the information base for the myriad of decisions affecting water, making the decisions and resulting actions more effective for their intended purposes.
(iv) Creating space for innovation
Better integration of data about water systems supports innovation in water management and associated technologies. Data should be considered necessary infrastructure for 21st century water management, creating opportunities for innovation in ways that cannot be anticipated at the outset.
(v) Public engagement and education
Data visualizations and interfaces can be a powerful tool for public engagement, making water issues relevant and resonant.
Major Data Groups
(i) Water Quantity
Data describing how much water is available, such as groundwater levels, reservoir levels, aquifer properties, streamflow, and rural/urban water bodies such as lakes, ponds and tanks.
(ii) Water Quality
Data related to the chemical or biological condition of the water including field parameters, chemistry measurements, and ecological data of both surface and ground water.
(iii) Water Use
Data related to the usage of water for agriculture, rural drinking water supply, municipal supply, industrial applications and more.
(iv) Water Planning
Essential data related to national, basin, state, district, municipal and village level planning.
(v) Ecosystems & Wildlife
Data related to ecosystems, aquatic life, watershed health and land use.
(vi) Infrastructure
Data that helps manage or describe water management structures such as dams, reservoirs, flood control structures, pipelines and canals.
(vii) Climate
Data describing long-term weather patterns such as precipitation, drought conditions and evaporation.
(viii) Natural Hazards
Data related to hazards like drought, flood, stormwater and public health factors.
(ix) Energy
Data related to energy development such as mining, water reuse, hydroelectric power and related activities.
Definitions
(i) Accessible: Full data sets are available to the public or authorized users in machine-readable, non-proprietary formats and should be discoverable and digitally accessible.
(ii) Authorized users: The group of users that are allowed to access a given dataset; defaults to the general public unless restricted for security/privacy reasons.
(iii) Data hubs: Structured sources of standardized water data aggregated by theme or geography.
(iv) Data producers: Public agencies responsible for collecting and generating water data as part of their designated functions.
(v) Data standards: Guidelines defining structure, quality, encoding and exchange of data to ensure interoperability.
(vi) Data users: Entities that use water data to create value; includes both primary and secondary users.
(vii) Findable: Data and metadata published online following best practices and tied to identifiable hydrography.
(viii) Interoperable: Data formats and APIs follow community standards and include high-quality metadata to enable use across systems.
(ix) Metadata: Information describing the data including identity, subject, source, structure, license and more.
(x) Modern data infrastructure: Integrated systems with standards, formats and tools enabling water data to be findable, accessible and shareable.
(xi) Reusable: Data published with version control allowing workflows to be reproduced.
(xii) Water data produced for the public good: Water data collected for regulatory or public missions made available to the public or authorized users.