What is it?

• CEDEN is the State Water Board's data system for surface water quality in California.

Who is it?

• CEDEN was created by the State Water Resources Control Board with support from the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP). To include all available statewide data (such as that produced by research and volunteer organizations), CEDEN works with three regional CEDEN - California Environmental Data Exchange Network data centers:
  • San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI)
  • Moss Landing Marine Laboratory (MPSL-MLML)
  • MLJ Environmental (MLJ Environmental)

  Anyone can access CEDEN data online or submit new data.

Why is it needed?

• The state's valuable waterways provide many services, including water supply, wildlife habitat, recreation, and flood control. These functions can be hampered by pollution or other manmade stressors. To keep an eye out for problems and improvements, federal environmental regulations require each state to periodically assess the condition of surface water bodies. CEDEN consolidates California’s data in a central location, where it can be easily accessed and used for statewide management efforts. See the Providing Data to be Assessed for the 303(d) List page for more information on this process.
  
  CEDEN data is also useful to organizations interested in water quality, scientists, citizen groups, and the public for reports and research purposes.

How do data get into CEDEN?

• Data in specified formats, using specified vocabulary are loaded into CEDEN with the help of RDCs. See the "Submit Data" option above, for more information on submitting data to CEDEN. See the current CEDEN Data Flow to get started.
  

Who are the CEDEN partners?

• See the CEDEN Partner page for a list.