A University Consortium for Water Science Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. A University Consortium for Water Science February 20, 2012
CUAHSI Mission “CUAHSI enables the university water science community to advance understanding of the central role of water to life, Earth, and society. CUAHSI focuses on water from bedrock to atmosphere, from summit to sea and from the geologic past, through the present and into the future.”
CUAHSI Mission Articulate community priorities for research infrastructure Develop and operate infrastructure Promote access to data Facilitate interdisciplinary study of water Assist/promote education and outreach Promote translating research to practice
Diversity of Member Reps: Departmental Affiliation
Diversity of Board: Departmental Affiliation
E&O Conceptual Basis Water as a view into coupled Earth System Water transport processes link atmospheric to geologic time scales Water plays a key role in geomorphic and geochemical processes of surface earth Water links geologic, biologic, atmospheric and oceanic systems Humans engineer water systems for societal goals
Education Programs Research Community Graduate Students Undergraduate Webinars by various disciplines Distribution through scivee.tv and UNESCO IHE very successful (10,000+ downloads) Graduate Students Focus on broadening educational experience (Pathfinder Travel Fellowships) Undergraduate Exploring distributed REU (modeled on IRIS)
Outreach Programs “Let’s Talk about Water” Use of advocacy documentaries to explore scientific and social issues around water Carefully managed q-and-a with expert panel Encourage active learning, critical thinking Citation: Eos 92:361-362 (Oct., 2011)
Programmatic E&O CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System Services-oriented architecture to serve time-series data Complements other disciplinary data services (e.g., gridded data from atmospheric science) HydroDesktop, open source client, combines map interface and analysis tools Enables access to real data, local to class
Metadata Catalog, Feb 2012 79 public services 13,000+ variables Map integrating NWIS, STORET, & Climatic Sites 3000-5000 GetValues requests per day. 79 public services 13,000+ variables 2.3+ million sites 23.3 million series Referencing 100+ billion data values
HydroDesktop: Opening Screen Search Plug-in GIS Layers Map Interface Specify where, when, what to discover data
HydroDesktop: Results Results from university and government agencies, downloaded to local database. Simple analysis tools available (e.g., R) or export to other program
Educational Potential of HD Enables geographic thinking Introduces GIS in a free application Promotes place-based learning Environment as integrating context Encourages multidisciplinary approach Access to real data local to student
Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. Questions?
HIS Usage
Usage by Service, Jan 2012