Research Areas > Information Management > Regional Data Center Support > SWAMP

Project Group: Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP)

SCCWRP Research

The Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP) is a statewide monitoring effort designed to assess the conditions of surface waters throughout California. It was proposed to integrate existing water quality monitoring activities of the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) and the Regional Water Quality Control Boards, as well as to coordinate these activities with other monitoring programs. The SWRCB, along with the US EPA, are responsible for reporting on the status of California’s water quality in order to provide a scientific basis for management priorities and regulatory actions.

A major ongoing challenge of making statewide assessments is to collate and standardize various monitoring data sets. These data sets, which may number in the hundreds, often exist in multiple formats with differing capabilities for access, export, and analysis. To overcome these data standardization challenges, the SWRCB supports data transfer to SWAMP through the centralized California Environmental Data Exchange Network (CEDEN). SCCWRP has been chosen as the Southern California Regional Data Center (one of four regional centers). As a regional Data Center, SCCWRP is responsible for maintaining a web-based data submission system, and providing support to the various agencies from southern California that submit water monitoring data. SCCWRP then forwards the submitted data to the CEDEN network.