WATERMARK - From Modules to Application

WATERMARK is a multi-disciplinary research initiative at the Austrian Research Centers which aims at developing intelligent knowledge-based services and solutions in order to support the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). One of the basic requirements for realizing the requested integrated water management approach is to develop advanced information and data management tools and applications. WATERMARK combines the research expertise of experts in water management, information technologies and environmental planning in order to develop innovative methodologies for comprehensive information management in the field of water resources management. Main objective of the WATERMARK project is to produce additional value out of the environmental data which will become available in the course of WFD implementation. This is done by integrating several data sources and modules into one coherent application. A couple of data sources easily available in house was chosen together with a handful of use cases. An architecture was defined, that allows to glue together all the data sources to one system allowing to work on the use cases. Some of these use cases were implemented together with all necessary access to the underlying data sources. Future development of WATERMARK is directed towards full ORCHESTRA (Open Architecture and Spatial Data Infrastructure for Risk Management) architecture compliance, integration of additional ORCHESTRA services, real-time access to sensor networks, and implementing further environmental management modules.