HR: 0800h
AN: H31C-0379 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Designing Hydrologic Observatories as a Community Resource
AU: * Hooper, R P
EM: rhooper@cuahsi.org
AF: CUAHSI, 2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20009 United States
AU: Duncan, J M
EM: jduncan@cuahsi.org
AF: CUAHSI, 2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20009 United States
AB: CUAHSI convened a workshop in August 2004 to explore what makes a successful hydrologic observatory. Because of their high cost, only a small number of observatories will be operated, at least initially. (CUAHSI has recommended a pilot network of 5 observatories to develop operational experience and an eventual network of approximately 15 sites.) Because hydrologic scientists can work "in their backyard" (unlike oceanographers or astronomers), hydrologic observatories must offer significant advantages over current methods of field work to successfully attract researchers. Twenty-four teams of scientists submitted "prospectuses" of potential locations for hydrologic observatories for consideration by network attendees. These documents (available at http://www.cuahsi.org) were marketing documents to the workshop participants, who voted for a hypothetical network of 5 observatories from the 24 proposed sites. This network formed the basis for a day of discussions on necessary attributes of core data and how to form a network of observatories from a collection of sites that are designed and implemented individually. Key findings included: 1) Core data must be balanced among disciplines. Although the hydrologic cycle is an organizing principle for the design of HOs, physical data cannot dominate the core data; chemical and biological data, although more expensive to collect, must be given equal footing. 2) New data collection must strategically leverage existing data. Resources are always limited, so that a successful HO must carefully target gaps in existing data, as determined by an explicitly stated conceptual model, and fill them rather than designing an independent study. 3) Site logistics must support remote researchers. Significant resources will be necessary for on-site staff to handle housing, transportation, permitting and other needs. 4) Network-level hypotheses are required early in the implementation of HOs. A network will only emerge around hypotheses. Network-level hypotheses are currently being solicited by CUAHSI to help inform proposing team of important community questions.
UR: http://www.cuahsi.org
DE: 1806 Chemistry of fresh water
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1848 Networks
DE: 0400 Biogeosciences
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting