Natural processes influence the United States? population, economy, and infrastructure. Many of these processes center around water and soil. Examples include flooding, groundwater movement, soil erosion, landsliding, permafrost thaw, and coastline change. In managing the risks and maximizing the resource potential associated with these types of process, computer simulation modeling and digital data analysis provide vital technologies. Researchers use computer simulations together with digital data to perform a variety of functions, ranging from fundamental research and discovery, to forecasting and ?what if? scenario planning. However, certain technical barriers inhibit finding, accessing, and operating modeling software and related tools and data sets. This project seeks to enhance research capabilities by combining the strengths of two complementary technologies: an existing web-based platform for finding and sharing water-related data, HydroShare, and an existing suite of computer simulation tools for water- and soil-related processes, the tool suite, developed by the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS). Integrating the CSDMS Workbench simulation modeling tools with the HydroShare platform will increase research productivity by simplifying the processes of finding, learning, and running appropriate models; by bringing models and data together on the same computer system; and by making it easier to package, share, and re-use the digital data files and software that result from published research.
Progress in understanding and predicting processes near the Earth's surface requires an ongoing integration of data and numerical models. Advances are currently hampered by technical barriers that inhibit finding, accessing, and operating modeling software and related tools and data sets. This project tests the feasibility of a cloud-based platform for accessing and running models, developing model-data workflows, and sharing reproducible results. The project brings together cyberinfrastructure developed by two important community facilities: HydroShare, which is the online collaboration environment for the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI), and the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS), which represents a community of about 1800 Earth surface process scientists. Hosting CSDMS models and tools on the HydroShare platform will foster open, accessible, and reproducible model-data integration for the sciences that deal with water, soil, and sediment at and near Earth's surface. In addition to its direct impact on research in these domains, the project will promote teaching, training, and learning by providing a series of community workshops on the prototype CSDMS@HydroShare Workbench. These outreach and training opportunities will include national meetings that represent the two primary communities involved, as well as a geoscience-oriented ?hack week? event. The Workbench will also be tested in two graduate-level computing-oriented courses. In addition, an introductory webinar about the new platform will be presented, recorded, and shared online for later access, and the tutorials developed for this pilot project will be published openly on HydroShare. The project will also provide professional development opportunities for two postdoctoral scientists.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
