1. CUAHSI-Hydrologic Information Systems
UCAR
CUAHSI – Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc
Formed in 2001 as a legal entity
89 member universities (May 2004)
Program office in Washington (3 staff)
Rick Hooper is Executive Director
Unidata
Atmospheric
Sciences
Earth
Sciences
Ocean
Sciences
CUAHSI
NSF Geosciences
Directorate
HIS

2. Environmental Cyberinfrastructure
Part of NSF Cyberinfrastructure program
Special emphasis on environmental sciences fostered by Margaret Leinen
CUAHSI Hydrologic Information Systems is one of several pilot projects

3. CUAHSI Program Components

4. CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System (HIS) Project
This a 2-year project to develop an RFP for the Center for Hydrologic Information (CHI) and perform preliminary research and prototyping for HIS
For years 3 and onwards, all funding will be competitively awarded by NSF/CUAHSI
Center for Hydrologic Information
HydroInformatics Thematic Centers
Project started 1 April 2004

5. Hydrologic Information Partners
Institutions of participants in the CUAHSI HIS Proposal

6. Hydrologic Information System
Analysis, Modeling,
Hypothesis testing
Hydrologic
Database

7. Arc Hydro: GIS for Water Resources
An ArcGIS data model for water resources
Arc Hydro toolset for implementation
Framework for linking hydrologic simulation models
Notes:
Industrial partners: ESRI, Danish Hydraulic Institute, Camp,Dresser and McKee, Dodson and Associates
Government partners:
Federal: EPA, USGS, Corps of Engineers (Hydrologic Engineering Center)
State: Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, Texas Water Development Board
Local: Lower Colorado River Authority, City of Austin, Dept of Watershed Protection
Academic Partners: University of Texas, Brigham Young University, Utah State University
The Arc Hydro data model and
application tools are in the public
domain

8. CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System
Experiments
Monitoring
1. Assemble data from many sources
Information Sources
Remote sensing
GIS
Climate models
2. Integrate data into a coherent structure
Hydrologic Information Data Model
Hypothesis testing
Analysis and
Visualization
3. Do science
Statistics
Data
Assimilation
Simulation

9. Digital Watershed: An implementation of the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information Data Model for a particular region
Created first for the Neuse basin and then for
each of the following CUAHSI Observatory Planning basins

10. 3D Control Volume of Neuse Basin
Fluxes
Extrude watershed boundary 15 km up into atmosphere
and 1 km down into subsurface

11. Hydrologic Characterization at Observatories
Three properties:
Residence time distribution within “stores”
Fluxes across interfaces/stores
Flowpaths between stores
Conceptual model
Include atmosphere as part of model
Elaboration of stores (boxes) and structure must be reconciled among disciplines
Need for spatial definition of “stores”,
perhaps as control volumes

12. Fluxes of greatest interest
Water
Vertical water flux
Precipitation (Nexrad)
Evaporation
Water vapor flux (with atmospheric circulation)
Energy
Net radiation
Sensible and latent heat
Atmospheric quality
Nitrogen, Mercury, contaminant transport

13. Ocean-Atmosphere Models
HIS will facilitate Model Integration
Coupled
Ocean-Atmosphere Models
Watershed Models
Mesoscale
Models P E Qs
D Ss
D Sg Qg Ig
Groundwater Models
SVATs
Information collected in HOs should be sufficient to run different types of codes:
Regional climate model
Land surface model
Watershed model
Groundwater model
Modeling …..interpolate and extrapolate from point data
Modeling …. Assess controls on water, energy, nutrient, and contaminant transport
Modeling can be used to develop predictive understanding of system response to climate change, land use/cover change

14. Challenges: Unidata and HIS
Focused on the present
Mostly “push” technology
Issue is rapid data dissemination
Operates mainly in Linux and Unix
Uses mainly public domain and institutional software
3D, time varying data continuously over the earth
CUAHSI – HIS
Focused on the past
Mostly “pull” technology
Issue is data capture and archiving
Operates mainly in Windows
Mixture of commercial and public domain software
Monitoring gage and GIS data

15. Integration of data systems and tools
IDV
Very useful cross-platform application for allowing hydrologists to view atmospheric information.
How can this be used for data selection and acquisition?
THREDDS and netCDF
Integrating atmospheric science data systems and hydrologic data systems
Integrating data models (netCDF and GIS data models)
NCAR SCD and NCDC
How to access historical data?

16. Where do we go from here? Some pilot projects? Educational activities?
Data viewing via IDV?
Joint CUAHSI-UCAR proposal for atmosphere-hydrology data integration?
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