This proposal seeks to advance hydrologic science by providing travel support to help create an international collaboration between leaders in data access and model integration systems from Europe and the United States. The U.S. contingent includes hydrologists developing the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Hydrologic Information System (HIS) Project, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (GEO-06-22374), and other researchers developing similar community modeling systems. These U.S. scientists will meet with the European scientists and engineers that have developed the Open Modeling Interface (OpenMI), a software environment for integrating hydrologic simulation models. The workshop will result in a report written by U.S. scientists that evaluates the data access approaches that can be used with a mature modern modeling platform, as well as describing the capabilities of OpenMI. This report will contribute to improved understanding of the technical challenges to providing data access to modeling systems that will be considered by CUAHSI for a community hydrology modeling platform. The intellectual merit of this workshop is to establish a dialog and to share experiences between the OpenMI developers and U.S. hydrologists. The European scientists have gained valuable experience at integrating hydrologic simulation models over more than five years of effort on this project. This experience, in particular the standards and tools resulting from the OpenMI development, could offer technological insights into modeling platforms. The objectives of this workshop include both evaluation of OpenMI as a modeling platform and the use of web services as a means to provide data access for community modeling platforms. The broader impacts of this project include establishing transatlantic collaboration and networking for hydrologic scientists toward the eventual goal of cyberinfrastructure for the hydrologic scientists. It is clear that, through efforts like the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System and the OpenMI, U.S. and European scientists have much to offer one another in terms of integrating heterogeneous data and modeling resources. The report resulting from this workshop will help to inform both sides as to the current undertakings, remaining challenges, and future directions for hydrologic modeling in the U.S. and Europe
