HR: 16:00h
AN: H12I-01 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: A University Consortium for the Advancement of Hydrologic Research
AU: * Hooper, R P
EM: rhooper@cuahsi.org
AF: Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc., 2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20009 United States
AU: Wilson, J
EM: jwilson@nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech, Dept. of Earth and Environmental Science, Socorro, NM 87801 United States
AU: Band, L
EM: lband@email.unc.edu
AF: University of North Carolina, Department of Geography, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 United States
AU: Reckhow, K
EM: reckhow@duke.edu
AF: Duke University, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Durham, NC 27708 United States
AB: Seventy-six research universities across the United States have joined to form the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI), a non-profit corporation. With support from the National Science Foundation, CUAHSI has embarked upon the design and development of programs to enable hydrologic research at larger spatial scales over longer time periods than has been within the grasp of individual investigators. The guiding principle of this design has been an embracing of the entire hydrologic cycle to enable research at the interfaces among traditional hydrologic subdisciplines and between hydrologic science and allied disciplines in the earth and life sciences. To improve our predictive understanding of hydrologic phenomena, the fundamental approach that has been adopted is the development of multidisciplinary, coherent data sets to enable testing of hypotheses in different hydrologic settings across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Four mutually supportive program elements have been conceived: a network of hydrologic observatories (the subject of this special session) designed strategically to collect additional data at large scales (on the order of 10,000 km2) and to leverage existing investments in small-scale intensive studies and in larger scale monitoring activities; hydrologic information systems to develop a comprehensive data model for integrating disparate data types, to develop the cyberinfrastructure necessary for systematic data collection and dissemination and to support community models; hydrologic measurement technology facility to broker instrumentation services from existing sources, to provide cutting edge tools along with the necessary support to use them, and to develop new hydrologic instrumentation needed to advance the science; and hydrologic synthesis center to provide a venue for hydrologic sciences from a range of disciplines to work on topics ranging from inter-observatory comparison to evolving CUAHSI's science agenda. Each of these elements has a dual role. They contribute towards the development and dissemination of the multidisciplinary data set to be collected at observatories that lies at the heart of CUAHSI activities. However, they also serve individual scientists to advance their own research by providing, respectively, access to data, a generic data model and modeling tool box, access to instrumentation at low or no cost, and access to a venue to pursue collaborative research. In this manner, CUAHSI strives to advance both its stated research agenda and to support research of individuals.
UR: http://www.cuahsi.org
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1848 Networks
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting