Making Hydrology Data More Accessible—2024 WaterSciCon Workshop Reflections

Earth observing data come in many different formats, resolutions, accuracies, and archival systems, making it challenging to navigate how to gather and harmonize all relevant data for a specific need. At WaterSciCon 2024, in a workshop dedicated to approaching how to overcome these challenges, participants from federal agencies, academic institutions, and the private sector came together to discuss and reflect on existing data access and visualization gaps in the hydrology community, identifying opportunities for connection, improvement, and collaboration. During the workshop, participants discussed what data accessibility means to them and noted existing pain points that create barriers to data access. Suggestions for improvement like the need for peer reviewed metadata, clear documentation, and user-centered design were championed across the board. As we move toward open science and open data, it is vital that we continue to have conversations about improving data accessibility for a wide range of audiences.