Collaborative Research: Development of Informatics Infrastructure for the Hydrologic Sciences

这项提案将通过开发一个可在全美大学实施的水文信息系统来推动综合水文科学的发展。它涉及来自大学水文科学促进联盟(CUAHSI)的水文科学家和圣地亚哥超级计算机中心的计算机科学家之间的合作，并支持NSF发展网络基础设施以推进环境系统跨学科研究的更大战略。CUAHSI水文信息系统将围绕一个水文数据模型建立，该模型将综合来自描述水环境的不同来源的数据，并将通过其自身的分析和可视化工具以及与外部建模和软件系统的链接来支持知识发现。将把水文信息系统建成一个网络，以便能够自动收集来自许多地理位置的数据源，并将其嵌入用户所在地的一个共同数据框架内。在这个项目中，将开发一个以圣地亚哥超级计算机中心为枢纽的原型系统，并利用由此获得的经验确定CUAHSI水文信息中心的建议书，该中心将负责该系统的长期维护和支持。综合水文科学将通过为纽兹河流域的水文观测站规划研究首次提出的一系列CUAHSI科学驱动问题来解决，其数据将被合成到CUAHSI水文数据模型中，作为原型数字流域。类似的数字流域将利用CUAHSI后来为全国其他地方的水文观测站进行的规划研究来建造，从而为不同水文制度的比较研究提供一个全面的信息库。这些数据集将通过互联网接口免费提供，水文数据模型也将提供给希望在其他地方开发数字流域的水文科学家。该项目的智力优势在于，它利用信息技术支持水文科学，围绕一个具有连贯知识结构和综合多学科数据的数据模型。它将能够追踪水在大气、地表水和地下水之间的垂直运动和输送，以及从分水岭和含水层到溪流、河流、河口和海湾的横向流动和输送。它将跨空间和时间尺度整合数据。这将使以目前很少尝试的方式和规模检验关于水文过程之间的界面的假设成为可能。这些研究的结果将发表在期刊论文和CUAHSI系列专著上。本项目所开发的原型水文信息系统本身对水文科学研究具有重要的价值，也将对未来长期实施CUAHSI水文信息系统具有指导意义。该项目的更广泛影响包括将许多大学的水文科学家联网，他们将共同提供和接收水文信息。将在公共领域开发CUAHSI水文信息系统及其附带的数据集，供专业水文界和各级教育工作者使用。由于使用这些信息的教育练习是由CUAHSI的科学家开发的，它们将通过地球系统教育数字图书馆(DLESE)等设施与更广泛的社区共享。

0413182HellyThis proposal will advance integrative hydrologic science through the development of a hydrologic information system that can be implemented at universities throughout the United States. It involves collaboration between hydrologic scientists from the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc (CUAHSI) and computer scientists from the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and supports a larger strategy at NSF to develop cyberinfrastructure to advance interdisciplinary study of environmental systems. The CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System will be built around a hydrologic data model that synthesizes data from diverse sources describing the water environment, and will support knowledge discovery through its own analysis and visualization tools and links to external modeling and software systems. The Hydrologic Information System will be built as a network so that data sources from many geographic locations can be automatically harvested and imbedded within a common data framework at the user's location. In this project, a prototype system will be developed with the San Diego Supercomputer Center as the hub, and the experience thus gained used to define a request for proposals for a CUAHSI Center for Hydrologic Information which will be responsible for the long-term maintenance and support of this system.Integrative hydrologic science will be addressed through a series of CUAHSI science driver questions posed first for a hydrologic observatory planning study of the Neuse River Basin, whose data will be synthesized into the CUAHSI hydrologic data model as a prototype Digital Watershed. Similar Digital Watersheds will be constructed using later CUAHSI planning studies for hydrologic observatories elsewhere in the nation, thus providing a comprehensive information base for comparative studies across different hydrologic regimes. These datasets will be made freely available through an internet interface, and the hydrologic data model will also be provided to hydrologic scientists who want to develop Digital Watersheds at other locations.The intellectual merit of this project is that it harnesses information technology to support hydrologic science by building around a data model that has a coherent intellectual structure and synthesizes data from many disciplines. It will enable the tracing of water movement and transport of constituents vertically between atmosphere, surface water and groundwater, and horizontally through the landscape from watersheds and aquifers to streams, rivers, estuaries and bays. It will integrate data across scales of space and time. This will enable the testing of hypotheses about the interfaces between hydrologic processes in a manner and scale that is rarely attempted now. The results of these studies will be published in journal articles and as a series of CUAHSI monographs. The prototype hydrologic information system developed in this project will be of significant value in itself for hydrologic science research and also as a guide to the future long-term implementation of CUAHSI hydrologic information systems. The broader impacts of this project include its networking of hydrologic scientists at many universities who will jointly be contributing and receiving hydrologic information. The CUAHSI hydrologic information system and its accompanying datasets will be developed in the public domain and available to the professional hydrology community and to educators at all levels. As educational exercises using this information are developed by CUAHSI scientists, they will be shared with the broader community through such facilities as the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE).