Environmental Disasters Data Management (EDDM) Working Groups

Environmental Disasters Data Management (EDDM) is a project created by a joint partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of New Hampshire’s Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) that seeks to improve the decision-making process when responding to environmental disasters by allowing data collected by a variety of organizations to be brought together and analyzed.

A steering committee, which includes members from government, academia and research organizations, industry, and NGOs, provided oversight for a workshop that was held in September 2014. Information on this workshop, presentations and the goals of this workshop, as well as the final report can be reviewed here>

Three EDDM working groups were formed as an outcome of this 2014 workshop:

  • Field Protocols and Training
  • Common Data Model
  • Gold Standard

For additional information, including a list of the group participants, please see the working group website here> The EDDM working groups reviewed the 2014 EDDM Workshop recommendations and determined specific objectives, outcomes, and schedule related to their topic. Groups met monthly via WebEx/Zoom from June 2015 through December 2016. Google Drive was used for document storage and sharing.

Field Protocols and Training

  • Objective 1: Inventory existing resources for field data collection. Document what is available and gaps
  • Outcome: Tableof existing protocols and gaps
  • Objective 2: Inventory existing protocols for gathering exposure and biomonitoring data. Document what is available and gaps, including need for training
  • Outcome: Tableof existing protocols and gaps
  • Objective 3: Apprise academics & NGOs of sampling protocols they should use to get data included
  • Outcome: Sampling protocol(s) for NGO/Academic data that can be shared; currently working with National Library of Medicine to put the EDDM work on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Disaster Research Response (DR2) Data Collection Tools & Resources website

Common Data Model

  • Objective 1: Document what specific data models, portals (data sets), and web services people are using across different disciplines and compile details regarding each one
  • Outcome: Tableof data systems pertinent to environmental disasters
  • Objective 2: Perform an example crosswalk of two existing data models to find similar elements.
  • Outcome:
  • Example used NOAA DIVER and EPA SCRIBE
  • Identify redundancy, compatibility across those data models with a crosswalkof NOAA DIVER and EPA Scribe

Gold Standard

  • Objective 1. Identify the functionality needed for information management and decision support tools for different disaster types and where these functionalities are located (e.g., IPAC, HAZUS, ERMA) or missing (gaps).
  • Outcome: Table including a series of matrices of tool vs. disaster type for different disaster scenarios
  • Objective 2. Identify criteria to evaluate data and procedures (for QA/QC, data transport, security, and data use analytics) that can be considered a Gold Standard.
  • Outcome: Table of current QA/QC procedures and suggestions for improvements
  • Objective 3: Identify critical data types for baseline data for different environments and types of disasters
  • Outcome: Table of data type vs. disaster type for different environments
  • Objective 4: Identify definitions of terms (data dictionaries).
  • Outcome: Tableof different data dictionaries as a function of environmental disaster type