It is becoming recognised that synergistic integration of knowledge and methods from a variety of allied disciplines is needed to study, engineer and manage water resources. Until recently this comprehensive investigative approach was limited, in part due to a lack of appropriate technologies. Recent advances in computer, communication and information technologies have led to increasingly pervasive and sophisticated ‘cyberinfrastructure', which enables integration in a common digital environment using remote and in situ measurements with geotemporal databases and high-performance computational models. This paper describes the initial efforts carried out by a University of Iowa research group in implementing and customising software components created by a hydrologic community project to support a local digital catchment. The initial goal was to test what types of data queries the digital catchment can handle and to see how it performs in cases where data streams are coupled with models for continuous forecasting of river water quality. The paper also discusses the general context for digital catchment development and summarises the lessons learned during this initial developmental stage. Given the uniform and scalable nature of the community project components, the workflows described are transferable to other users and other catchments. This synergistic initial effort led to the conclusion that community project components can successfully underpin the national effort of creating a network of ecohydrologic observatories.