This project advances hydrologic science and water resource management by uniquely leveraging cloud computing for modeling and managing large watershed systems. The first project task creates a cloud-enabled hydrologic model, the second project task creates generic cloud-based data processing workflows needed by hydrologic models and other domains, and the third project task applies the hydrologic model and data processing workflows to model a large watershed system at detail and scale to address research questions related to quantifying impacts of climate change on water resources. This research project addresses fundamental issues with regard to understanding how a cloud computing paradigm can and should be used to model hydrologic systems and other scientific applications.
The work has the potential to produce broad impacts because of the importance of clean water to society, the need for interdisciplinary education between the hydrologic and computer sciences, and through the creation of open source software that will extend existing software provided through the NSF-funded CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System (HIS) project. This research provides important and timely interdisciplinary training for a graduate student and a postdoctoral scholar so that they are able to address complex water resource problems using cutting edge computer science techniques.
