European regulations, such as the EU Water Framework Directive and the draft of the EU Flood Directive have required water management organisations to publish their data in a clear and specific manner. The reporting requirement and the specifications for representing results and their assessments are important aspects of these regulations which need to be fulfilled in different ways. This is already justified by the Århus Convention, which requires the accessibility of environmentally relevant data for the general public. Geographic information systems are recommended for use in producing these types of reports due to the large volumes of data to be compiled and evaluated in the process.

Cross-border co-operation is also imperative due to the fact that water flows across administrative borders – whether municipal or country lines. Depending on the type of border involved, the data may not be read in the same way. Shared standards for data formatting have yet to be developed. A consistent system is to be developed within the “XGDI-WCM” project to solve this very problem.
 
Object standards and the geoinformation system
In this joint project, the two water management associations will attempt to format the data sets relevant to their industry and compile them according to the existing GDI guidelines to create a (national and international) cross-border geographic infrastructure. More specifically, this means that the existing standards and information systems will be aligned and enhanced to improve the availability of existing and new data material.

The Dutch object standard AQUO can be used as the basis for the creation of a shared object standard, featuring an object catalogue and logical model. The content, symbols and semantic descriptions need to be adapted in order to achieve a more consistent representation – which makes the data easier to read and exchange.

Experience values with an existing Wupperband system – the FlussGebietsGeoinformationsSystem (Flood Area Geoinformation System) FluGGS – - will provide a basis for the development of a shared Web-oriented geoinformation system. The aim is to enhance and adapt the system further to improve the accessibility of data for participants and the general public.
 
General aims
As described earlier, the aim of this co-operation is to harmonise the formats and documentation styles so that data can be exchanged and integrated into systems in each country without difficulty. The results of this project should be formatted in such a way as to make them applicable to other water associations. The co-operation with other partners (associations Schwalm and Nette and possibly Waterschap Rijn & Ijssel) will help to ensure that this is the case.

Technical aims
From a technical perspective, this project specifically deals with issues surrounding the quality and volume of the available water. Input values, specifically basic drainage data and measurement data, as well as results, including measurement evaluations, model calculations and their specialised assessment need to be visualised for this purpose.

One specific aim of this project involving water balance and disaster management is the determination and representation of flood areas for the event of extreme flooding. Entering and using this information in maps of regions endangered by flooding will create synergies with other disaster management applications as well as the Viking project.

Water quality is another aspect of water management. The water management application field is responsible for examining the water quality and balance. Data will be collected from water quality measurement points and presented in a geoviewer. Also planned is the visualisation of time series (such as level and precipitation data) based on OGS standards (key word: SensorWeb), which allows for an interactive connection.