The Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS) is a national effort to develop, support, and disseminate to the earth-science research and teaching community, integrated software aimed at predicting the erosion, transport, and deposition of sediment and solutes in landscapes and their repository sedimentary basins. The goal of CSDMS is to enable the rapid development and application of linked dynamical models tailored to specific landscape-basin evolution problems and at specific temporal and spatial scales. The CSDMS enterprise will allow individual scientists, educators and students to participate through a virtual or digital library of continuously evolving and linkable models, boundary condition data, and educational packages. Three proof-of-concept challenges will be addressed: 1) Predicting the transport and fate of fine sediment and carbon from source areas in the landscape to sedimentary basins that accumulate sediment over time; 2) Understanding the impact of humans on the natural cycle, through, for example, changes in waterways, forest fires, and agricultural practices; and 3) Tracking the evolution of landscapes and seascapes through our geological past, with focus on Pleistocene glacial cycles. The CSDMS will develop and maintain the computational system, and ensure the portability and interoperability of earth-surface modules, the computational efficiency of system code, and the clarity and consistency of documentation and interfaces.
A community-based modeling environment, built of tools created by and provided for a broad spectrum of users with diverse aims, skills, and interests provides for the flexibility required by those who will benefit from CSDMS products. Modeling the surface of the Earth is a problem of comparable complexity to modeling oceanic and atmospheric dynamics. The experience of these communities teaches us that development of large, complex numerical models rapidly becomes a task for an entire research community. A community approach allows efficient development of models that are more powerful than any single group could develop. The CSDMS infrastructure provides a modeling environment to catalyze Earth-surface research over the coming decades by: empowering a broad community of scientists and students with computing tools and interdisciplinary knowledge; streamlining the process of idea generation and hypothesis testing through linked surface dynamics models; and enabling rapid creation and application of models tailored to specific settings, scientific problems, and time scales. CSDMS will provide 1) professional training in use of the CSDMS computational system, 2) technology to enhance undergraduate earth-science education, (3) tools for enhancing secondary-school teaching in earth-surface science, and (4) informal educational packages to public institutions such as science museums.
This award is made jointly between EAR and OCE of the GEO Directorate, NSF.
supports the development of software for understanding the Earth’s surface – the ever-changing interface between land, air, water and ice. CSDMS addresses redundancy and catalyzes new research by archiving and distributing computer models and datasets in a free online repository. We provide members with access to high performance computing clusters for developing and running models, and offer a suite of educational products for public use. The CSDMS Integration Facility develops frameworks and services for converting stand-alone models into flexible "plug-and-play" components, so that researchers can build the sophisticated tools needed to understand the rapidly changing Earth. Since CSDMS began, our membership has grown from approximately 80 scientists in 2007 to a diverse community of more than 1000 geoscientists representing 440+ international institutions in 64 countries. The CSDMS Integration Facility offers free support to scientists wishing to add a model or data to the CSDMS Repository or to create a component for collaborative research. New users of CSDMS software are trained annually in clinics and courses. CSDMS has organized, hosted or sponsored 120 workshops, symposia and meetings, 15 short courses and 35 clinics to train scientists in high performance computing and computer modeling of earth surface processes. The CSDMS Model Repository offers 200+ open-source models and modeling tools composed of more than 5.6 million lines of code. Models of glaciers, permafrost, icebergs, rivers, streams, coral reefs, ocean circulation, beaches, deltas, mountains, seascapes and many other earth surface features are readily available for application and development along with supporting weather and climate models. Between 2007 and 2012, models in the CSDMS Repository received more than 10,000 downloads. CSDMS also preserves and distributes valuable datasets, including bathymetric, topographic, climate (precipitation and temperature), river discharge, ice thickness, vegetation cover, sea level, coral reef database, ocean sediment thickness, soil type and population change data. CSDMS is committed to open-source, and all models and datasets are available free of charge for download, use and modification. Models are assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and Quick-Response (QR)-codes at the Integration Facility, and we provide users with single-click access to key model equations and documentation. A major achievement of CSDMS 1.0 was the development of a new process for converting individual computer models into "plug-and-play" components that researchers can link together to build complex models of earth surface systems for hypothesis testing. This Basic Model Interface, or BMI, is straightforward to implement in any of the programming languages supported by CSDMS, which include C, C++, Fortran, Java and Python. Developing the BMI included generating regridders, time interpolators and unit converters that can link models with different spatial grids, timesteps and units. This code is available in the CSDMS Repository along with 51 other innovative modeling tools. The CSDMS Integration Facility also created the CSDMS Modeling Tool (CMT), an interface that allows researchers to swap pieces of 55 componentized models. The CSDMS Integration Facility provides free support for researchers who wish to prepare their models for use by other scientists, and a dedicated supercomputer is offered free to members for running CMT and developing stand-alone or componentized models in the CSDMS repository. CSDMS provides professional training to researchers in industry, academia and government. CSDMS formulated an industry consortium in 2008, and 5% of CSDMS members are now from industry, along with 17% from federal agencies. CSDMS has organized, hosted or sponsored 120 workshops, symposia and meetings, and has trained 55 graduate students in high-performance computing for earth surface modeling. Our annual meetings advance researcher knowledge by offering state of the art talks, clinics and workshops on the latest models in the CSDMS repository. Presentations and materials from CSDMS events are made available for free public download at http://csdms.colorado.edu. CSDMS develops and distributes educational tools for students, teachers and the general public. The Education Repository offers on-line undergraduate and graduate modeling courses, educational modules, labs, and process and simulation movies. This resource is available to the community and to learners worldwide. Exercises include student notes, instructor notes and lesson plans. Downloadable labs are available on diverse topics such as evaporation, infiltration, delta evolution, river discharge, sediment supply and human influences. The CSDMS YouTube Channel offers 141 short movies that have been viewed 112,605 times, putting CSDMS in the "Top 50 most viewed channels" in the "non profit" category. Since 2007, the work of CSDMS has supported 159 scientific journal articles, books and book chapters and 194 professional presentations. Advancements have been made in our understanding of landslides, glacial flow, erosion and deposition, landscape evolution, permafrost dynamics, carbon sequestration, sediment trapping behind dams, and many other crucial topics in earth surface research. To see more examples of science accomplished with the support of CSDMS, we invite you to view our website at http://csdms.colorado.edu.
