HR: 0800h
AN: H31C-0385 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Illinois River Basin Hydrologic Observatory: A Center for Understanding and Predicting the Complex Hydrologic Cycle of Intensively Managed Landscapes AU: * Kumar, P
EM: kumar1@uiuc.edu
AF: University of Illinois, Deaprtment of Civil and Environmental Engineering 205 North Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801 United States
AB: This paper is submitted on behalf of several individuals representing many institutions. We envision that the Illinois River Basin Hydrologic Observatory (IRB-HO) will be a center of excellence that provides improved scientific understanding of the hydrologic cycle with predictive capability to support better management and decision-making by stakeholders, in an intensively managed landscape. The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers near Chicago, Illinois, and flows 380 km. southwest to the Mississippi River at Grafton, Illinois. It drains an area of over 80,000 sq. km. The basin is characterized by high productivity agriculture and rapid growth of urban areas, and located in northern temperate climate with low relief glaciated landscape. The observatory will address important questions that will lead to socially useful probabilistic assessments of future conditions in the basin. The IRB-HO will serve the following two functions: \begin{enumerate} \item Enable multi-scale interdisciplinary research by providing infrastructure that will attract scientists and water resource professionals to pursue research in the basin. Providing this "community science resource" will be an important function that attracts both remote and on-site participation by investigators from the hydrologic science community, nationally and internationally. \item Answer fundamental interdisciplinary questions of high societal relevance as part of the core effort. The core science questions will be organized around the broad thrust areas of (i) water, energy and sediment flux and dynamics, (ii) biogeochemistry, (iii) hydroecology, (iv) water resources management, (v) Transport of chemical and biological contaminants. \end{enumerate} The IRB-HO will be managed as a center with broad involvement of the community in conception, design and implementation. Further, the core data collected will be made publicly available immediately to realize maximum benefits from the HO. Education and outreach programs and effective partnerships with stakeholder organizations will be established to support management and policy decisions based on the scientific understanding and effective technology transfer.
DE: 1818 Evapotranspiration
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1878 Water/energy interactions
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting