WATER-QUALITY DATA MANAGEMENT - SURVEY OF CURRENT TRENDS

A water-quality-data-management survey of 200 water-quality agencies i n the United States was conducted in 1991. The survey solicited inform ation from each agency regarding the methods of data storage and manag ement used. the type of activities involving water-quality data that w ere performed by the agency. the types of water-quality data used, the sources of the data used, and interagency activities involving water- quality data. The survey results indicated that there is a high demand for data sharing, since almost all agencies responded that their wate r-quality data are used by others. There is also a potential for data sharing because of the predominant use of ARC/INFO geographic informat ion systems and dBASE database software. Future software development f or water-quality data applications should use this potential and be ap propriate for IBM-compatible personal computers.