Overview:
The Lower Nooksack Water Budget Project involved assembling a wide range of existing data related to WRIA 1 and specifically the Lower Nooksack Subbasin, updating existing data sets and generating new data sets. This Data Management Plan provides an overview of the data sets, formats and collaboration environment that was used to develop the project. Use of a plan during development of the technical work products provided a forum for the data development and management to be conducted with transparent methods and processes. At project completion, the Data Management Plan provides an accessible archive of the data resources used and supporting information on the data storage, intended access, sharing and re-use guidelines.

One goal of the Lower Nooksack Water Budget project is to make this “usable technical information” as accessible as possible across technical, policy and general public users. The project data, analyses and documents will be made available through the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project website http://wria1project.org. This information is intended for use by the WRIA 1 Joint Board and partners working to achieve the adopted goals and priorities of the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Plan.

Model outputs for the Lower Nooksack Water Budget are summarized by sub-watersheds (drainages) and point locations (nodes). In general, due to changes in land use over time and changes to available streamflow and climate data, the water budget for any watershed needs to be updated periodically. Further detailed information about data sources is provided in review packets developed for specific technical components including climate, streamflow and groundwater level, soils and land cover, and water use.

Purpose:
This project involves assembling a wide range of existing data related to the WRIA 1 and specifically the Lower Nooksack Subbasin, updating existing data sets and generating new data sets. Data will be used as input to various hydrologic, climatic and geomorphic components of the Topnet-Water Management (WM) model, but will also be available to support other modeling efforts in WRIA 1. Much of the data used as input to the Topnet model is publicly available and maintained by others, (i.e., USGS DEMs and streamflow data, SSURGO soils data, University of Washington gridded meteorological data). Pre-processing is performed to convert these existing data into a format that can be used as input to the Topnet model. Post-processing of Topnet model ASCII-text file outputs is subsequently combined with spatial data to generate GIS data that can be used to create maps and illustrations of the spatial distribution of water information. Other products generated during this project will include documentation of methods, input by WRIA 1 Joint Board Staff Team during review and comment periods, communication tools developed for public engagement and public comment on the project.

In order to maintain an organized system of developing and distributing data, Lower Nooksack Water Budget project collaborators should be familiar with standards for data management described in this document, and the following issues related to generating and distributing data:
1. Standards for metadata and data formats
2. Plans for short-term storage and data management (i.e., file formats, local storage and back up procedures and security)
3. Legal and ethical issues (i.e., intellectual property, confidentiality of study participants)
4. Access policies and provisions (i.e., how the data will be made available to others, any restrictions needed)
5. Provisions for long-term archiving and preservation (i.e., establishment of a new data archive or utilization of an existing archive)
6. Assigned data management responsibilities (i.e., persons responsible for ensuring data Management, monitoring compliance with the Data Management Plan)

This resource is a subset of the Lower Nooksack Water Budget (LNWB) Collection Resource.