The Hydrology Domain Working Group is a domain working group in the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). It brings together interested parties to develop and promote the technology for greatly improving the way in which water information is described and shared. This working group is to be hosted by the OGC and co-chaired by a representative from the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) Commission for Hydrology (CHy). The Hydrology Domain Working Group will coordinate efforts with other earth science DWGs (Meteorology, Oceans, etc) through the Earth System Science DWG.

The purpose of the Hydro DWG is to provide a venue and mechanism for seeking technical and institutional solutions to the challenge of describing and exchanging data describing the state and location of water resources, both above and below the ground surface. The path to adoption will be through OGC papers and standards, advanced to ISO where appropriate, and also through the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) and its Commission for Hydrology (CHy) and Information Systems (WIS) activities. While CHy has the recognized mandate to publish and promote standards in this area, OGC contributes to the process with its resources and experience in guiding collaborative development among disparate participants in a rapidly evolving technological environment. It is proposed that the OGC Hydrology DWG will provide a means of developing candidate standards for submission to ISO and for adoption by CHy as appropriate.