Wayland, MA, November 20, 2009. The Open Geospatial Consortium
(OGC®) will launch a Hydrology Interoperability Experiment
(HDWG_IE1) on December 8, 2009. The initiators of the experiment seek
participation by other organizations interested in developing standard
ways of discovering, sharing and interpreting groundwater data using
OGC Web Services (OWS) interface and encoding standards
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards].

This interoperability experiment will advance the development of
WaterML 2.0 [http://his.cuahsi.org/wofws.html]  and test its use with
various OWS standards, including the OGC Sensor Observation Service
(SOS), Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), and Catalog
Service Web (CSW) Interface Standards. The experiment will also
investigate the interaction of WaterML 2.0 with   GroundwaterML
[http://ngwd-bdnes.cits.rncan.gc.ca/gwml/index.aspx?c=2]  (GWML) in
scenarios involving the sharing of groundwater data between the USA
and Canada.

Initiators of the experiment are: Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), US
Geological Survey (USGS), and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Organizations participating
in the experiment will include the Geology Survey of Canada (GSC),
NRCan; USGS; CSIRO, the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement
of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) and others.

Applications for participation are due by December 8, 2009. For
further details or to register as a participant visit:
http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/HydrologyDWG/GroundwaterInteroperabilityExperiment.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 385
companies, government agencies, research organizations, and
universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly
available geospatial standards. The OGC’s OpenGIS® standards
Support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless
and location-based services, and mainstream IT. These standards
empower technology developers to make geospatial information and
services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be
geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at
http://www.opengeospatial.org.