Data security for water security

Good groundwater governance requires good data. Geoscience Australia recently concluded the Exploring for the Future program (EFTF), an eight-year, $225 million national-scale program. A key facet of EFTF was improved water security for households, agriculture and industry. The groundwater component of EFTF involved over 60 people collecting data (e.g. 76,803 line-km of AEM, 58 bores drilled, 179 downhole geophysical surveys, 395 SMR soundings and 344 hydrochemistry samples) across more 300,000 km2 of Australia and resulted in more than 70 technical reports and data releases. The Australian Government is continuing to invest in long-term understanding of groundwater through the 35-year, $3.4 billion Resourcing Australia’s Prosperity Initiative. For science to support decision-making, data confidence is paramount. The development of any groundwater product involves data handling by multiple people, from acquisition, processing, and integration, through interpretation, storage and delivery. Without controls, various factors may lead to close coupling of datasets to individuals along the development pathway which can result in downstream issues requiring resolution. This and other issues become even more important when dealing with multi-generational programs in which data quality needs to be assessable by people not yet born as well as technologies not yet developed. Using the “wrong” datasets to develop products can lead to frustrating delays and reprocessing, and subtle faults in those products. This presentation explores some of the things that can go wrong with data handling in multi-person activities in multi-year programs, and discusses the role of transparency in the product development process. Presented at the 52nd Congress of International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH2025)