RAPID: Seamless Marine-wetlands-coastal Soils Database to Support Urgent Decision-making Against the Deepwater Horizon Coastal Oiling

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For several years, the PIs have been developing a data system which can represent the soils "substrates, sediments" of the coastal fringe. They have been devising solutions to these problems over the last several years by: (a) extending a large marine soils database to onshore landscapes in the Australian outback, (b) researching the geologic/ecologic changes in the Mississippi delta region, (c) innovating in making numerical and linguistic data co-mappable (the heterogenous data problem). The coastal zone is heavily populated and invested in worldwide. This project will open the way to a better depiction and understanding of the geomaterial and environmental patterns over large expanses of the zone. In particular, better availability of data will improve planning and numerical model performance based on improved inputs and extended opportunities for validations. In regard to the Deepwater Horizon disaster this project will immediately provide better information focussed on and supporting the cleanup and remediation efforts. The project will strengthen the cleanup decision support systems and numerical models, and will provide a new source of data to work with the associated research-side scientific mapping and experimental work.