-- The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) announces the formation of an OGC WaterML 2.0 Standards Working Group (SWG). ( http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/waterml2.0swg ).

WaterML 2.0 is a candidate OGC encoding standard for the representation of in-situ hydrological observations data. WaterML 2.0 is implemented as an application schema of the Geography Markup Language (GML) version 3.2.1 and makes use of the OGC Observations and Measurements (O&M) standard and the O&M eXtensible Markup Language (OMXML) GML Application Schema. OGC WaterML 2.0 will support encoding of hydrological and hydrogeological observation data in a variety of exchange scenarios.

Example areas of usage are: exchange of data for operational monitoring and forecasting programs; supporting operation of infrastructure (e.g. dams, supply systems); exchange of observational and forecast data for surface water and groundwater; release of data for public dissemination; enhancing disaster management through data exchange; and exchange in support of national reporting. WaterML 2.0 was developed by a group of hydrology and water professionals. It harmonizes concepts from a number of existing standards in use.

OGC WaterML 2.0 Standards Working Group Charter Members include:

-  52°North

-  Australian Bureau of Meteorology

-  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

  (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency

-  Deltares (Netherlands)

-  Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada

-  German Federal Institute of Hydrology

-  KISTERS AG (Germany)

-  University of California, San Diego, San Diego Supercomputer

  Center, working with the Consortium of Universities for the

  Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI)

-  US Geological Survey (USGS)

-  US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Contact Peter Taylor < Peter.Taylor@csiro.au > for details.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 410 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.