The San Diego Bay Watersheds Common Grounds Project was created to incorporate data from water quality monitoring programs and integrate this data on a watershed level using a web-based interactive application to serve as a broad communication, education and decision-making tool; and to further develop the region's capacity to understand and assess processes affecting our water resources.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Common Ground?

The San Diego Common Ground project is a web-based resource of data, maps and mapping applications, and education tools for anyone interested in water quality within the San Diego Watersheds. For more information on the goals and mission of Common Ground, please see the project information page.

Who are the project team members?

San Diego State University Geography Department, San Diego Coastkeeper, the City of San Diego and Weston Solutions. Data providers include: San Diego International Airport, City of Chula Vista, City of La Mesa, City of Lemon Grove, City of National City, City of San Diego, City of Coronado, City of Imperial Beach, County of San Diego, Port of San Diego, San Diego Citizen Volunteers, and SDSU/San Diego Coastkeeper Volunteers.

Where can I find educational tools?

The Common Ground education webpage includes information for educators, a watershed video and web-based lessons on the San Diego Bay watershed and the hydrological cycle.

How can I volunteer to monitor in my watershed?

By going to the volunteer webpage, you can learn how to and why it is important to monitor water quality in your watershed. This page also has a link to the San Diego Coastkeeper website, where you can sign up to become a water quality monitoring volunteer.

Learn about GIS and mapping?

To learn more about GIS, start by clicking the What is GIS? link. To learn more about the maps and mapping tools available on the Common Ground website, try the Getting Started link on the Maps page.

List of data sources?

On the Data webpage, choose the Data Query tool. After clicking through the disclaimer, the list under ‘agency’ includes all the data sources of the Common Ground project.

What are water quality objectives?

Water Quality Objectives (WQOs) are numerical or narrative limits on constituents or characteristics of water designed to protect designated beneficial uses of the water. California’s WQOs are established by the State and Regional Water Boards. To find the water quality objectives used in the Common Ground project, please see the Water Quality Objective page.

Find water quality data for my watershed?

A list of water quality data for the San Diego Bay Watershed can be viewed and downloaded in various file formats from the Browse Shapefiles and Metadata page. An ArcIMS interactive mapping application and data query tool is also available to search and retrieve water quality data.

Download a PDF of all interactive mapping tutorials?

Go to http://www.sdbay.sdsu.edu/IMS/Website/CommonGroundNew/ArcIMS Turtorials.pdf to download a pdf of interactive mapping tutorials.


San Diego Bay Watersheds http://www.sdbay.sdsu.edu   | Sitemap    | Glossary