HydroShare is a domain repository for water science: a system operated by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) that lets researchers store, describe, share, publish, and discover hydrologic data and models. Where a generalist repository like Zenodo or Figshare will accept almost any file type with minimal domain context, HydroShare is built around the specific content types and metadata that hydrology and water-resources research actually produce — time series, geospatial rasters and vectors, multidimensional NetCDF datasets, and executable model instances. For a data management plan (DMP) naming a repository for hydrologic data, or for a research administrator evaluating whether a proposed repository choice is credible and durable, HydroShare is one of the primary discipline-specific repositories in this field.
What HydroShare is and who operates it
HydroShare is developed and operated by CUAHSI, a non-profit consortium of universities that has received continuous National Science Foundation (NSF) funding since 2004 to build shared cyberinfrastructure for hydrologic science. HydroShare itself grew out of NSF-funded software engineering awards beginning around 2012 (including ACI-1148453 and ACI-1148090), with ongoing operations and development supported by subsequent NSF collaborative awards to CUAHSI and partner institutions. The platform’s codebase is open source (three-clause BSD license) and developed publicly on GitHub, and the service is free to use: anyone can browse and download public content without an account, and creating an account to upload or manage resources is free.
This funding and governance structure matters for DMP credibility in the same way it matters for any named repository: NSF directorates that require a data management plan generally want to see a repository choice that will plausibly still exist, and remain accessible, well past the end of an award. A repository that is itself NSF-funded, community-governed by a consortium of universities, and has operated continuously for over a decade is a materially stronger commitment than an ad hoc lab website or a personal cloud-storage link.
What content types HydroShare supports
HydroShare organizes everything a user uploads as a "resource," and resources can hold a wide range of hydrology-relevant content types, including:
- Hydrologic time series (streamflow, water quality, precipitation, and similar observational records)
- Geographic features (vector data such as watershed boundaries or monitoring-site locations)
- Geographic rasters (gridded data such as digital elevation models or remotely sensed imagery)
- Multidimensional space-time datasets, notably NetCDF files common in climate and hydrologic modeling
- Model programs and model instances, including the software, parameter sets, and configuration needed to run or reproduce a hydrologic model
- Composite resources, single-file resources, and general file-set resources for content that doesn’t fit a more specialized type
This is the practical distinction between HydroShare and a generalist repository: a generalist platform stores whatever file you upload but generally treats it as an opaque blob with minimal structured description, while HydroShare’s resource types carry type-specific metadata (spatial and temporal coverage, variable names, model parameters) that make hydrologic data genuinely findable and interpretable by other researchers in the field, not just downloadable.
Publication, DOIs, and persistent identifiers
HydroShare supports a formal data-publication workflow, distinct from simply sharing a resource privately or publicly with collaborators: authors can move a resource through a review of minimum metadata requirements and then publish it, at which point HydroShare mints a citable DOI for that resource. This makes HydroShare content citable in a manuscript reference list the same way a journal article or a dataset in a generalist repository would be, and it gives funders and journals enforcing data-availability requirements a stable, resolvable identifier rather than a URL that might move or disappear. Published resources also carry version history, so a cited DOI points to a specific, fixed version of the data or model even as newer versions are added later.
Access control, licensing, and reuse
Resources in HydroShare can be kept private, shared with specific collaborators, or made fully public, and authors choose the license under which public content is released (commonly a Creative Commons license). This granular access control matters for research involving any sensitive component — for example, a hydrologic study that also touches site access agreements or landowner data — where a researcher may need to keep certain files restricted while still publishing the broader dataset. HydroShare’s stated commitment to the FAIR Data Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) is reflected in this combination of structured metadata, persistent identifiers on publication, and explicit licensing rather than ambiguous reuse terms.
Standards and interoperability
HydroShare’s geospatial resources are described using metadata consistent with the Federal Geographic Data Committee’s Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC/CSDGM), the long-standing US federal standard for geospatial dataset description, which lets HydroShare content interoperate with the broader GIS and earth-science data ecosystem rather than being legible only within HydroShare itself. The platform also exposes a REST API for programmatic access to resources and metadata, and integrates with free computational environments — including MATLAB Online and a CUAHSI-hosted JupyterHub — so that a published resource’s Jupyter notebooks or model code can be opened directly into a live compute environment rather than only downloaded. For researchers whose reproducibility workflow depends on re-running an analysis, not just re-reading a dataset description, this compute integration is a meaningful practical advantage over a repository that only offers file download.
Where HydroShare fits in a data management plan
For a hydrology, water-resources, or environmental-science researcher writing an NSF or NIH Data Management Plan, naming HydroShare as the target repository is a defensible, well-precedented choice when the data in question is genuinely hydrologic in nature (time series, hydrologic model output, watershed-scale geospatial data). It is generally the stronger choice over a generalist repository specifically because of its domain metadata and model-resource support — reviewers and funders assessing DMP quality increasingly look for repository choices matched to data type, not just any repository with a DOI. Where a dataset falls outside hydrology’s scope, or where an institution already has a repository mandate, a generalist or institutional repository may be the better fit instead; CASRAI’s guide to choosing an open data repository covers that broader decision framework, and the domain repository and discipline-specific repository entries explain how this category differs from institutional and generalist alternatives more generally.
Frequently asked questions
Is HydroShare free to use?
Yes. Browsing and downloading public resources requires no account, and creating an account to upload, manage, and publish resources is also free. HydroShare is funded through NSF awards to CUAHSI rather than through user fees.
Does HydroShare assign DOIs?
Yes, for resources that go through HydroShare’s formal publication process (as distinct from simply sharing a resource privately or publicly without publishing it). A published resource receives a citable DOI and retains a version history.
Who can deposit data in HydroShare?
Anyone can register for a free account; HydroShare is not restricted to CUAHSI member institutions, though CUAHSI itself is a consortium of universities and its governance and community are centered on hydrologic and water science.
What kinds of hydrologic models does HydroShare support?
HydroShare provides dedicated resource types for model programs (the software/code itself) and model instances (a specific configuration, parameter set, and run of that software), so both the model and a reproducible instance of its use can be described, versioned, and cited separately.
How does HydroShare differ from a generalist repository like Zenodo or Figshare?
Generalist repositories accept nearly any file type with comparatively generic metadata. HydroShare instead offers resource types and metadata fields specific to hydrology — time series, geospatial rasters and vectors, NetCDF, and model instances — plus integrations with compute environments used in hydrologic modeling, making it a stronger fit when the data is genuinely domain-specific.
This page describes HydroShare’s publicly documented features and funding as of publication; consult hydroshare.org and CUAHSI’s own documentation directly for current operational details before finalizing a data management plan.
