This project will develop a cyberinfrastructure prototype (the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Observatory, CBEO) to provide integrated access to a broad array of established monitoring databases, as well as streaming data sources and historical simulations from hydrodynamic models for Chesapeake Bay. The proposed work leverages and extends CI components, metadata standards, and ontologies developed for other observatory networks and includes four interdependent efforts: a prototype test bed effort (CBEO:T), a GEON-based node (CBEO:N), use of CBEO:T and CBEO:N to address science questions related to hypoxia in the system (CBEO:S) and an outreach and education component (CBEO:E).
Scientific questions the PIs seek to address relate to hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay, specifically to improve understanding of (1) the processes causing hypoxia by reconciling predictions from mechanistic models with field observations; (2) inter-annual co-variation of river flows and hypoxia, and (3) regional and seasonal balances between sources and sinks of organic matter that regulate oxygen consumption and hypoxia in bottom waters of the Bay. Novel approaches to data integration will be studied, and the development of "cross-walks" between controlled vocabularies and metadata standards used by several existing observatory efforts plus ontological concept mapping to be conducted by the node development team will contribute to parallel efforts in other networks.
The project will provide educational opportunities through partnerships with Sea Grant, NSF's COSEE-MA, and Hampton University's MAST multi-cultural program. Direct participation of multicultural students and a K-12 teacher are planned. The work will benefit a wide array of local stakeholders by providing powerful new ways to integrate and visualize data and information about Chesapeake Bay and will provide validation and field testing of tools and concepts developed by emerging environmental observatory networks and initiatives, thus serving to inform CI development in other networks facing similar problems.
