This tutorial will show you the features of the NCRN data portal - simply click the next arrow >> above to continue.

Step1:
At the first step you can choose from Vital Sign, National Park, or Ecological System. In this example, we have chosen by National Park.

Step2:
At the second step, we selected Rock Creek Park (ROCR). If you had selected Vital Sign or Ecological System in the first step, you would have a different set of options at this step.

Step3:
Now you will see a map of the selected park (Rock Creek) and we have automatically selected the Nutrient Dynamics vital sign. From this step, you could select a single location, or All Locations from the map. Try mouse-ing over the names, or the Nutrient Dynamics (P) icons to identify the monitoring locations.

Click the next arrow >> above to continue.

Now we are at the data page and we start at the refine search panel where you change most things from the previous selection, plus the date range. By default the date range selected covers all sampling events for the vital at the selected locations(s).

Click the next arrow >> above to continue.

After making changes to the Refine Search panel and clicking View Data you are now at the Data panel. From here you can return to the Refine Search panel or access a variety of other resources including Excel downloads, data graphs and maps.

TRY IT:

• Mouse over the values in the table to see summary statistics.
• Click on the column header cell to sort by that parameter.
• Click the graph icon at the top of the Nitrate column. Note that histograms are color-coded for compliance to threshold values and the threshold region is outlined (green box).
• Click on the Excel spreadsheet link. Note that the values are color-coded for threshold compliance, and also that there are two tabs - one for summary data and one for complete data.
• Click on the specific Nitrate graph for Broad Branch - it shows all sampling events for that location. NB: For all graphs there is a link at the bottom to a fully editable vector version of the graph.

Click the next arrow >>above to continue.

Instead of All Locations, we are now viewing the data for just Piney Branch (this was accessed by clicking the 'ROCR-Water-47 (Piney Branch)' text in the Location column of the table). Now we will see all data points for this sampling location (Note that the first column in the table is now Date/Time, rather than Location).

TRY IT:

• Click the 'Map of Nutrient Dynamics data for Rock Creek Park' link and then choose Nitrate from the drop-down list of parameters. You'll notice that sites are color coded by compliance to the threshold value.
• Mouse over a site icon on the map to display a range of statistics about the site.
• Click on the site icon to bring options for the site.
• Click the detailed graph link.
• All these maps can be scales, panned and changed to Street Map and Hybrid versions.

Click the next arrow >> above to continue.

We are now on a special panel that is currently only available for Rock Creek Park which shows watershed level data on a Google map.

TRY IT:

• Click the "Watershed Map of water quality data" link.
• Choose dissolved oxygen from the drop down list of parameters. Notice the color coding of the sites, but also the sub-watershed shading.
• Mouseover a sampling location for statistics on the site and subwatershed.
• Click on a site and then click on the site photo popup and the Detailed Graph popups.

Click the next arrow >> above to continue.

We returned to the Refine Search Panel and swapped the vital sign to Forest Vegetation.

TRY IT:

• Click the camera icon for one of the vegetation species.
• Click anywhere on the photo to close it.

Again, we returned to the Refine Search Panel and this time chose ROCR-0094 from the list of locations. Note that now we have a Date/Time column for each species.

TRY IT:

• Click on the 'Photo of the Forest Vegetation site - ROCR-0094' link . Click anywhere on the photo to close it.

We hope that has given you a good basis for the navigation system of the NCRN data portal. If you have any questions, problems, suggestions, please visit our discussion forum.

Click the close button X above to close the tour and start using the data portal.