The 2023 ORBA/ORBCRE Summit took place on October 5th-6th, 2023 at Embassy Suites Cincinnati RiverCenter, located in Covington, KY. The Ohio River Basin Alliance (ORBA) and the Ohio River Basin Consortium for Research and Education (ORBCRE) have hosted this annual summit since 1985 to provide an opportunity for academia, industry, and regulatory agencies to come together to discuss water issues across the basin. The summit had a feature keynote speaker, Colonel Jayson Putnam, Commander of the Huntington District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. From 3RQ, Melissa O’Neal (Associate Director, WVWRI) and Rachel Spirnak (Water Resources Specialist, WVWRI) gave presentations.
Melissa O’Neal's presentation, Three Rivers QUEST:
Success in Collaboration, focused on Three Rivers Quest (3RQ) collaborations with various watershed organizations, regulatory agencies, industry, and more. One way 3RQ fosters collaborations is through annual roundtable meetings. 3RQ also offers watershed groups a free database called WATERS and a data tool map to provide users with easy
access to data from various sources across state boundaries (link below). This collaboration is a success story and she shared the positives that have arose from this.
Rachel Spirnak's presentation, Three Rivers QUEST Beta Mapping Tool for the Upper Ohio River Basin, gave listeners an overview of the WATERS database, what the 3RQ Beta Mapping Tool is, the data available through the 3RQ Mapping Tool, and examples of its applications.
Check out the WATERS database and 3RQ Mapping Tool referenced above and send us suggestions!