Research and Education Cyberinfrastructure Investments to Develop the Coastal Hazards Collaboratory in the Northern Gulf Coast

研究和教育网络基础设施投资发展北墨西哥湾海岸灾害合作实验室提案号：EPS- 1010640牵头机构：路易斯安那州董事会项目主任：Michael M Khonsari链接至：EPS-1010578 （Sandra H Harpole，密西西比州立大学）链接至：北墨西哥湾沿岸对经济上重要的沿海渔业、海洋运输、能源开发和战略性国防的可持续性至关重要。EPSCoR研究基础设施改善（RII）轨道2奖支持的项目建立了北部海湾沿岸灾害合作实验室（NG-CHC），以：(1)提高区域的研究竞争力；(2)通过降低沿海脆弱性风险，为公民提供更多的经济机会；(3)通过增强网络基础设施（CI）促进合作研究，解决工程设计、沿海系统响应和沿海灾害风险管理等对国家具有重大意义的问题。该联盟的三个州，路易斯安那州（LA）、密西西比州（MS）和阿拉巴马州（AL），正在利用他们的伙伴关系、邻近性和在CI方面的重大预先投资，推进整个地区沿海灾害的科学和工程。NG-CHC有机会利用强大的CI和沿海灾害研究基础设施来解决国家重要问题。面临的挑战是制定一个框架和战略，以超越国家边界的方式组织该地区的资源。到目前为止，主要的障碍是缺乏CI，这使得可以快速共享可用的数据资源和工具，并在这个脆弱的沿海地区推进与沿海灾害相关的地球科学和工程的新发现。研究基础设施改进轨道-2网络基础设施（CI）投资将侧重于增强数据存储、传感器网络、计算和仪器系统，这些系统对于解决分布式海岸灾害合作实验室的挑战至关重要。NG-CHC的重点是制定一项战略计划，为研究和教育环境开发综合CI，通过在多学科环境中加强建模和观测之间的联系，将地球科学、工程、地理信息学、计算科学和经济发展结合起来，从而提高模拟沿海灾害的能力。利用综合观测网络和模型在适当的空间和时间尺度上表征动态环境过程是地球系统科学面临的重大挑战之一。这种能力对于减少建筑、人类和自然环境风险的社会需求至关重要。由于最近的重大投资，位于北墨西哥湾沿岸的大学、政府和私营企业的观测和数据存储系统的容量有所提高，但该地区缺乏将这些数据清单整合为信息和知识以减少沿海灾害风险所必需的CI。需要一个能够模拟从流域到海岸的所有相关相互作用过程的集成CI来实现一个捕捉这些地球表面过程动态性质的系统。这包括耦合模型的能力，调用基于传感器和卫星数据流的动态算法，定位适当的数据和计算资源，创建与不同仿真需求相关的必要工作流程，并为结果分析提供可视化工具。NG-CHC内部的合作研究计划围绕三个原型仿真实验组织：(1)浪涌制导系统；(2)河流/流域洪水模拟；(3)生态系统恢复和降低洪水风险。沿海灾害代表了全球范围内普遍存在的环境、工程和社会问题，其中人类和自然动态是紧密相连的。因此，ng海岸灾害合作实验室提出的CI可能对沿海环境中的生活和工作具有国家和国际意义。促进北墨西哥湾沿岸地区恢复力的挑战，包括城市、工业和自然景观组成部分，为开发新技术提供了一个实验室，以减少对自然和建筑环境的风险。关键是沿海科学家、沿海工程师和社会科学家之间的紧密结合，全面致力于产生促进科学发展的成果，并为设计更可持续的景观提供坚实的基础。建议的NG-CHC将通过解释景观格局，预测景观动态，以及在“系统设计”中应用批判性思维和解决问题的技术，建立一个更综合的研究环境。

Research and Education Cyberinfrastructure Investments to Develop the Coastal Hazards Collaboratory in the Northern Gulf Coast Proposal Number: EPS - 1010640Lead Institution: Louisiana Board of RegentsProject Director: Michael M Khonsari Linked to: EPS-1010578 (Sandra H Harpole, Mississippi State University) Linked to: EPS-1010607 (Sara J Graves, University of Alabama in Huntsville) The Northern Gulf Coast is essential to the sustainability of economically important coastal fisheries, marine transportation, energy development and strategic national defense. The project supported by this EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) Track-2 award establishes the Northern Gulf Coastal Hazards Collaboratory (NG-CHC) to: (1) enhance the research competitiveness of the region, (2) advance economic opportunities for citizens by reducing risks to coastal vulnerabilities, and (3) catalyze collaborative research via enhanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) that addresses problems of major national importance, viz., engineering design, coastal system response, and risk management of coastal hazards. The three states in the consortium, Louisiana (LA), Mississippi (MS), and Alabama (AL), are leveraging their partnerships, proximity, and significant prior investments in CI to advance science and engineering of coastal hazards across the region. The NG-CHC has the opportunity to capitalize upon strong CI and coastal hazards research infrastructure to address issues of national importance. The challenge is to develop a framework and strategies for organizing the resources in the region in a manner that transcends boundaries among state lines. The principal barrier to date has been the lack of CI that enables rapid sharing of available data resources and tools and advance new discoveries in geosciences and engineering associated with coastal hazards in this vulnerable coastal region. The Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-2 cyberinfrastructure (CI) investments will focus on enhancement of the data storage, sensor network, computing and instrumentation systems that are essential for addressing the challenges of a distributed Coastal Hazard Collaboratory. Intellectual MeritThe NG-CHC is focused on a strategic plan to develop integrated CI for a research and education environment to promote the capability in simulating coastal hazards by enhancing the linkages between modeling and observations in a multidisciplinary environment that couples geoscience, engineering, geoinformatics, computational science, and economic development. One of the grand challenges for earth system science is to characterize dynamic environmental processes at appropriate space and time scales with integrated observation networks and models. Such capabilities are critical to societal needs for reduction of risks to built, human and natural environments. The observational and data storage systems located at university, government and private industries in the Northern Gulf Coast have increased capacity due to recent major investments, but this region lacks the CI necessary to integrate these data inventories into information and knowledge that will reduce risks to coastal hazards. An integrated CI capable of simulating all relevant interacting processes from the watershed to the coast is needed to implement a system that captures the dynamic nature of these earth surface processes. This includes the ability to couple models, invoke dynamic algorithms based on streams of sensor and satellite data, locate appropriate data and computational resources, create necessary workflows associated with different simulation demands, and provide visualization tools for analysis of results.The collaborative research program within NG-CHC is organized around three prototype simulation experiments: (1) Surge Guidance System; (2) River/Watershed Flood Modeling; and (3) Ecosystem Restoration and Flood Risks Reduction.Broader Impacts Coastal hazards represent generic environmental, engineering and social problems worldwide in which human and natural dynamics are strongly and inherently coupled. Thus, the proposed CI in the NG-Coastal Hazards Collaboratory may have national and international implications to living and working in coastal environments. The challenges to promoting resilience of the Northern Gulf Coast region, including the urban, industrial, and natural landscape components, provide a laboratory to develop new technologies that reduce risks to both natural and built environments. The key is close integration among coastal scientists, coastal engineers, and social scientists, with a comprehensive commitment to producing results that advance science and provide a sound basis for designing more sustainable landscapes. The proposed NG-CHC would develop a more integrated research environment by interpreting landscape patterns, forecasting landscape dynamics, and applying critical thinking and problem solving techniques in 'system designs'.