Capabilities
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Project Team
Contacts
Related Sites
Wisconsin Water Science Center
USGS Mercury Lab
About the Center for Integrated Data Analytics
The Center for Integrated Data Analytics (CIDA), headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin, is dedicated to the deployment of high-end information technology products to enhance data storage and access methods against natural resources datasets. CIDA partners include various other USGS entities, as well as various local, state, national, and international agencies.
The CIDA emphasizes enterprise database and software development in collaboration with USGS scientists and others to provide researchers, policy makers, and the general public access to environmental monitoring data and analytic products through web-based interactive geospatial displays and other decision support tools.
Technical Areas of Expertise
The Center for Integrated Data Analytics (CIDA) is always expanding its areas of technical expertise. Currently, CIDA has seven main areas of expertise.
See the complete list of our projects »
Data Warehousing, Centralization and Standardization
Proper Data Warehousing is essential for the efficient delivery of scientific data. Data from disparate sources needs to be properly aggregated, standardized, checked for errors, and organized for the best query performance.
The CIDA has several projects where a well-designed data warehouse is essential:
USGS Publications Warehouse
National Water-Quality Assessment program (NAWQA) Data Warehouse
Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) Corridor Study Database
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) Fish Mapper
National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI)
Biodata Public Retrieval System
Transactional Systems
Transactional systems ensure efficient and accurate data entry into the database. A well-designed transactional database will minimize data errors and provide quality data to a data warehouse.
Current CIDA projects that utilize a transactional system for data entry include:
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Management Database
Billable Hours Tracking System (BTS) for the USGS Enterprise Publishing Network
USGS Mercury Research Laboratory Database
NEMI
Wisconsin Beach Health
Aquatic Bioassessment Data Input System
Spatial Applications
Visual representation of data has become increasingly important. Visualizing trends in water data can easily highlight areas of concern to the public.
The CIDA has several projects where Spatial output has increased the utility of the underlying data set:
NAWQA Data Warehouse
WDNR Fish Mapper
SPARROW Model Decision Support
Wisconsin Beach Health
Search Capabilities
Data that is of interest to the public needs to be available in such a way that users can easily find the data they are looking for. Data that is accurate, well-indexed, and can be searched easily can be invaluable to the public.
Current Center for Integrated Data Analytics projects with publicly-searchable data sets include:
USGS Publication Warehouse
NEMI
NAWQA Data Warehouse
Web Services
A web service is a computer-to-computer protocol that allows for the direct sharing of information. As the quantity of data increases, efficient sharing of data becomes more critical to decision-making.
The Center for Integrated Data Analytics has partnered with US Environmental Protection Agency to combine data from USGS's NWIS and EPA's STORET systems and make them available as a USGS-USEPA water quality web service.
Hosting
The Center for Integrated Data Analytics has assembled a fast and solid network of databases, application servers and storage devices. By utilizing economies of scale, CIDA can host applications on its servers for minimal overhead.
Real-time Data Dispersal
Data that supports human health decision-making need to be available in as close to real-time as possible. Continuous water-monitoring equipment can send back data it collects in real time, and can be loaded into a database to be publicly available in a matter of minutes or hours.
CIDA supports the Wisconsin Beach Health project which relies heavily on real-time data collection to assist with determining advisories to be posted regarding human health related to beach water quality in Milwaukee.
