Collaborative Research: Western Consortium for Watershed Analysis, Visualization, and Exploration (WC-WAVE)

对高海拔集水区观测和预测的水文变化的机制知之甚少，特别是在积雪动态、地表水/地下水联系以及与植被的相互作用方面。爱达荷州、内华达州和新墨西哥州设想成立一个西部流域分析、可视化和勘探联盟(WC-WAVE)，其总体目标是通过支持网络基础设施(CI)的发现和创新来推动流域科学、劳动力发展和教育。WC-WAVE有三个综合组成部分，有相关的目标和方法：1.流域科学：利用虚拟流域框架增进对水文相互作用及其对生态系统服务的影响的了解。流域科学家和学生对流域模型进行参数化、运行、验证和集成；指定大众用户需求；并就不断发展的CI平台提供反馈。可视化和数据CI：通过创新的可视化环境和简化的数据管理、发现和访问，加快协作、跨学科的分水岭研究和发现。CI团队开发、测试、部署和集成大众数据和服务平台组件。CI的改进提供了一个用户友好的大众平台，该平台支持高级分析、建模和可视化活动，并且基于强大的CI，支持数据保存、数据同化以及数据和模型的互操作性。劳动力发展和教育：让大学教职员工和研究生参与基于团队的跨学科分水岭研究，并通过建模和可视化扩大本科生对STEM的参与。该联盟支持：通过提供跨学科培训和劳动力准备的一系列研究所和研究活动培养研究生劳动力；以及两批不同的本科生及其教师，他们获得并使用建模和可视化技能来创建可纳入课程的教育模块。WC波的合作和影响持续到奖项之外；将数据和模型纳入开放社区的数据中心和代码储存库；以及由国家方案采用CI。智力优势：山区分水岭为西部山区社区提供了很大比例的水和生态系统服务。气候变化的影响影响到流域提供蓄水、调流和改善水质等水文服务的能力。降水、植被生长、火势、土壤水分、径流和其他景观属性之间的相互作用创造了这样的系统，在这种系统中，即使是气候的细微变化也可能导致复杂的反应和连锁影响。在虚拟流域框架内利用先进的建模方法和传播与信息技术将创造性的观测和分析战略结合起来，对于理解和预测对气候和水文变化的复杂反应至关重要。WC-WAVE CI使研究人员能够：轻松获取和整合数据，使用一套集成的模型来发现连接水文循环组成部分的过程，识别水文变化的环境后果，以及可视化和解释数据和模型结果，从而提高对美国西部流域动态的了解。大众框架功能将模拟分水岭驱动因素和动态，并带来新的发现。广泛的影响：沉浸式虚拟现实环境提供了促进跨学科讨论和对复杂科学问题的创造性见解的平台，并使创新能够带来突破性的发现。此外，发展三维思维能力是科学教育的重要目标。劳动力发展和教育计划的重点是：(1)实施类似NSF IGERT的计划，为研究生在协作的跨学科团队中有效解决复杂的科学问题做好准备，(2)促进本科教师的专业发展，为未来的STEM教育和/或就业做好不同的本科生准备，以及(3)开发可纳入本科课程的教育模块。这些活动正在造就一支准备应对STEM挑战的劳动力队伍，这需要跨学科合作和计算思维技能。

Mechanisms responsible for observed and projected hydrologic change in high-elevation catchments are poorly understood, especially with respect to snowpack dynamics, surface-water/groundwater linkages, and interactions with vegetation. Idaho, Nevada, and New Mexico envision a Western Consortium for Watershed Analysis, Visualization, and Exploration (WC-WAVE) whose overarching goal is to advance watershed science, workforce development, and education with cyberinfrastructure (CI)-enabled discovery and innovation. WC-WAVE has three integrated components, with associated goals and approaches:1. Watershed Science: Advance understanding of hydrologic interactions and their impact on ecosystem services using a virtual watershed (VW) framework. Watershed scientists and students parameterize, run, validate, and integrate watershed models; specify VW user requirements; and provide feedback on the evolving CI platform.2. Visualization and Data CI: Accelerate collaborative, interdisciplinary watershed research and discovery through innovative visualization environments and through streamlined data management, discovery, and access. The CI team develops, tests, deploys and integrates the VW data and service platform components. CI advancements provide a user-friendly VW platform that supports advanced analysis, modeling, and visualization activities and is based on robust CI that enables data preservation, data assimilation, and data and model interoperability.3. Workforce Development and Education: Engage university faculty and graduate students in interdisciplinary team-based watershed research, and broaden undergraduate student participation in STEM through modeling and visualization. The Consortium supports: graduate workforce development through a series of institutes and research activities that provide interdisciplinary training and workforce preparation; and two cohorts of diverse undergraduates and their faculty mentors that acquire and use skills in modeling and visualization to create education modules that can be incorporated into curricula.WC-WAVE collaborations and impacts are sustained beyond the award via collaborative research projects; incorporation of data and models in open-community-based data centers and code repositories; and CI adoption by State programs.Intellectual Merit:Mountain watersheds provide a large proportion of water and ecosystem services to communities in the intermountain west. Climate change impacts affect the ability of watersheds to provide hydrological services such as water storage, flow moderation, and water quality improvement. Interactions among precipitation, vegetation growth, fire regime, soil moisture, runoff, and other landscape properties create systems in which even subtle changes in climate may lead to complex responses and cascading impacts. Integration of creative observation and analytical strategies using advanced modeling approaches and CI made possible in a virtual watershed framework is critical to understanding and predicting complex responses to climate and hydrologic change. WC-WAVE CI enables increased understanding of watershed dynamics in the western US by allowing researchers to: easily acquire and integrate data, use an integrated suite of models to discover processes linking components of the hydrologic cycle, to identify environmental consequences of hydrologic changes, and to visualize and interpret data and model results. The VW framework capabilities will simulate watershed drivers and dynamics and lead to new discoveries.Broader Impacts:Immersive virtual reality environments provide platforms that foster interdisciplinary discussion and creative insight into complex scientific questions and enable innovations that result in groundbreaking discoveries. Further, developing three-dimensional thinking skills is an important goal for science education. The Workforce Development and Education program focuses on: (1) implementing an NSF IGERT-like program that prepares graduate students to work in collaborative, interdisciplinary teams to effectively address complex scientific issues, (2) promoting undergraduate faculty professional development and preparing diverse undergraduates for future STEM education and/or employment, and (3) developing education modules that can be incorporated in undergraduate curricula. These activities are leading to a workforce that is prepared to tackle STEM challenges requiring interdisciplinary collaboration and computational thinking skills.