THE TIJUANA RIVER WATERSHED: AN NSDI NATIONAL COMMUNITY DEMONSTRATION SITE

摘要

The Tijuana River Watershed (TRW) is an international basin which straddles thernCalifornia-Baja California border. In the fall 1998 the TRW was selected as one of sixrncommunities nationwide to demonstrate the effectiveness of applying geospatial data torna broad range of environmental, social, and economic problems within an emergingrngeographic information system (GIS) infrastructure known as the National SpatialrnData Infrastructure (NSDI). The NSDI, developed by the Federal Geographic DatarnCommittee (FGDC) relies on partnerships between federal, state, local, and regionalrngovernments to develop and make accessible geospatial data in a form accessible tornthe end-user. The TRW was selected as a community demonstration site in large partrnbecause of the development in 1995 of a geospatial database of the basin. Therndatabase was prepared jointly by San Diego State University and El Colegio de larnFrontera Norte, a Mexican think tank, under a memorandum of understanding (MOU)rnsigned by the presidents of the two universities. The MOU provides for collaborationrnbetween the two universities in the areas of GIS database development, scientificrnresearch, and watershed education and public outreach. Start-up funding and aerialrnphotography flown in 1994 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationrninitiated the development of the GIS.rnThis paper has three specific objectives: 1) to describe the geographic features of thernTRW and the characteristics of the GIS database that has been developed to addressrntransborder environment problems; 2) to provide an overview of current projects inrnthis transborder region and relate the relevance of the TRW GIS as supportingrninfrastructure for these projects; and 3) to describe the TRW Demonstration Projectrnprocess and milestones for accomplishing its objectives. These three objectives arernconsidered in the context of the principal goal of the National CommunityrnDemonstration Program which is to pilot the application of the NSDI at the local level.rnPursuant to community input, the TRW demonstration project, scheduled for completionrnin May 2000, will undertake a flood risk analysis of the basin for various intensities ofrnflood events at three different scales and resolutions: watershed, sub-basin, andrnindividual canyon levels.