Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Tomorrow: Using CUAHSI HIS to Support Large Scale Collaborative Research in Utah

Tomorrow's HIS Cyberseminar will conclude the Spring 2013 series. We began this spring's series with the a talk about how researchers in the Northeastern US are using HIS and we will conclude the series tomorrow with an example of how researchers are using the technology out West...


Using CUAHSI HIS to Support Large Scale Collaborative Research in Utah 

Jeffery S. Horsburgh, Amber Jones, Stephanie Reeder, James Patton,
Juan Caraballo, Mauriel Ramirez, and Nathaniel Mouzon



 iUTAH (innovative Urban Transitions and Aridregion Hydro-­‐sustainability) is a statewide effort dedicated to maintaining and improving water sustainability in Utah. Synthesis of diverse data collection and modeling to support cross-­‐disciplinary and cross-­‐institutional research teams working on the iUTAH project is a challenge that requires storage, networking, computational, and human resources. The iUTAH Cyberinfrastructure Team (CI Team) is building the iUTAH Modeling and Data Federation (MDF) to support the full data life cycle and increase capacity for data collection, organization, management, sharing, synthesis to higher-­‐level products, and integration with models. The iUTAH MDF is an online system for iUTAH researchers and partners to share data, models, and other digital resources. As part of the iUTAH project, researchers from multiple Utah universities are developing a new sensor network called GAMUT (Gradients Along Mountain to Urban Transitions). The objective of GAMUT is to measure aspects of water inputs, outputs, and quality along a mountain-­‐to-­‐urban gradient in three Utah watersheds that share common water sources (winter-­‐derived precipitation) but differ in the human and biophysical nature of land-­‐use transitions. GAMUT will deploy sensors at aquatic and terrestrial sites for real-­‐time monitoring of common meteorological variables, snow accumulation and melt, soil moisture, surface water flow, and surface water quality. The multiple watershed, multiple institution, and scale of the GAMUT network present challenges for managing and publishing the data that will be produced. The iUTAH CI Team is building and deploying cyberinfrastructure to support management of the streaming sensor data, including components of the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System (HIS). This includes tools for automated loading of streaming data into relational databases, data models for storing and accessing the data, software tools to facilitate the data quality control process, new applications to support data management and equipment tracking by iUTAH field technicians, and tools for publishing the data on the Internet. The iUTAH CI Team is focused on developing hardware and software systems that will improve iUTAH participants’ capacity for data collection, organization, management, sharing, synthesis to higher-­‐level products, and integration with models. The iUTAH MDF is coordinating across Utah universities, including provisioning hardware that enables hosting of data publication and sharing services as well as data storage resources for redundancy and for High Performance Computing support. In this presentation, we describe ongoing work to develop the hardware and software platforms that will create better access to data and new tools for collaboration among iUTAH participants.


Connection Details:
Conference Line: (866) 244-8528
Participant Code: 391191

Either have the system call you back once you log into Adobe Connect or dial in using the conference line and participant code. 

We hope you will join us tomorrow, May 1, at 3 PM Eastern.


Monday, April 29, 2013

Video: The Director's View of the CUAHSI Water Data Center


The recording of last Wednesday's (4/24/13) HIS Cyberseminar, entitled The Director's View of the CUAHSI Water Data Center, is now available on YouTube. In this talk, the current Data Center Director (Dr. Alva Couch), discusses some of the first year priorities for the new facility and gives a brief look into its future.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Wednesday's Cyberseminar: The Director's View of the CUAHSI Water Data Center



CUAHSI's Spring HIS Cyberseminar Series resumes this Wednesday with a talk from the Director of the CUAHSI Water Data Center, Dr. Alva Couch, who will discuss the goals and priorities of the recently funded data center:

In this talk, Dr. Couch will give users a glimpse of the future of the CUAHSI Water Data Center, from the point of view of its current director. Running a national Data Center of any kind is a constant balancing act between cost and value. The value of data -- and the value of a data center in providing it -- is easy to understand; it is measured in terms of whether the data helps the data center's constituents meet their scientific goals. However, curating and providing useful data incurs some perhaps surprising and counter- intuitive costs.  Thus, the director of any data center must answer some really difficult questions, including the most difficult question of all: "exactly what is the value of publishing a specific dataset?" From this point of view, Dr. Couch will describe some of the first-year priorities for the Water Data Center in detail, and give a brief look into its future.

To attend, follow the link and dial into the conference line listed below:

Conference Line: (866) 244-8528
Participant Code: 391191


We hope you will join us!


Thursday, April 18, 2013

2013 CUAHSI Conference on Hydroinformatics and Modeling - Registration Now Open!

Registration and Abstract Submission is now open for the 2013 CUAHSI Conference on Hydroinformatics and Modeling.

CUAHSI is hosting a conference on Hydrologic Information Systems and Modeling for researchers to showcase advances in hydrologic information system and modeling technology and their use to advance hydrologic science. Contributions are solicited on scientific progress enabled through the use of advanced information systems and models. The conference will include technical sessions on hydrologic information systems and hydrologic modeling and hands-on training and workshops to introduce the community to the services provided by the new CUAHSI Water Data Center.

Who Should Attend?


Researchers: Data discovery, analysis, and science enabled by information systems
Educators: Uses of water data for teaching
Modelers: Coupling models and data from multiple sources
Data Publishers: Organizing, storing, and making data available to others
Developers: Creating tools and contributing to the future of hydrologic information systems


Planned Topics Include:


  • Earth System Modeling
  • Semantics and Ontology
  • Data Interoperability with the Earth System
  • Data and Information Systems in Hydrologic Education
  • Programming Hydrologic Information Systems
  • Data Publication and Data Citation
  • Workflows
  • HPC and Cloud Computing
  • Sensor Networking and Telemetry
  • Emerging Technologies for Hydrologic Field Data Capture


Click to Register!


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

A Reminder - No HIS Cyberseminar Today

The cyberseminar that was previously scheduled for today, entitled Using CUAHSI HIS to Support Large-Scale Collaborative Research in Utah by Dr. Jeff Horsburgh of Utah State University, has been rescheduled to Wednesday, May 1.

Interested in the previous cyberseminars from this spring's series? Visit the CUAHSI website to watch video and download presentation slides.

Please join us next Wednesday when Dr. Alva Couch (CUAHSI; Tufts University) will discuss the new CUAHSI Water Data Center...details to come!



Monday, April 15, 2013

Video: A Modular, Open-Sourced Software for the Method of Anchored Distributions

Last week's HIS Cyberseminar, which discussed the Method of Anchored Distributions (MAD) software, is now available to view online. Developed as both a HydroDesktop plugin and a standalone application, this software is used for characterizing uncertainty in model parameters. Watch the full video below:




Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Tomorrow: A Modular, Open-Sourced Software for the Method of Anchored Distributions

Join us tomorrow, April 10, 2013 at 3 PM (Eastern) for the next HIS Cyberseminar, which will discuss a software development partnership between researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Brigham Young University. Here is an abstract:

Title: A Modular, Open-Sourced Software for the Method of Anchored Distributions
Authors: Daniel P. Ames1, Matthew W. Over2, Carlos A. M. Osorio1, Yoram Rubin2
1 Brigham Young University, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Provo, UT
2University of California, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Berkeley, CA

The Method of Anchored Distributions software (in construction) is an extension to HydroDesktop for characterizing uncertainty in model parameters.  The software is designed to supplement the search and discovery of data with a suite of Bayesian statistical analysis tools.  The method is generally applicable and should support characterization of model parameters in a variety of scientific areas – current efforts are largely focused in subsurface hydrology, but new applications areas are a high priority.  The software is designed to be generically compatible with other numerical simulation and analysis tools to permit even greater utility for future users.  Our presentation will feature a brief summary of the Bayesian theory, a demonstration and discussion of a MAD application using the software, and an overview of the software architecture as well as development plans.

To attend, follow the link and dial into the conference line listed below:

Conference Line: (866) 244-8528
Participant Code: 391191

Once you have connected to the conference line, you will be prompted for the participant code.



Monday, April 8, 2013

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Tomorrow: What's New and What's Coming in HydroDesktop


Join us tomorrow, April 3, 2013 at 3 PM (Eastern) for the next installment of this Spring's HIS Cyberseminar Series. This week will feature Dr. Daniel P. Ames who leads the development of HydroDesktop at Brigham Young University:

HydroDesktop is the most widely used portal to the 95+ data sources registered in the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System (HIS). HydroDesktop is a free and open source Geographic Information System-based tool that enables searching, downloading, visualizing, and analyzing of hydrologic and climate data registered in the CUAHSI HIS. As a research and development project, the HydroDesktop team, led by Brigham Young University, periodically releases new iterations of the software which is driven by user defined bug reports and feature requests facilitated by a web based software management system at http://hydrodesktop.codeplex.com. Dr. Dan Ames, the HydroDesktop project lead, will discuss this open source development process, will also detail the newest features in the current recommended release, version 1.5.12, and will discuss proposed features proposed for 2013 and beyond. 

To attend, follow the link and dial into the conference line listed below:

Conference Line: (866) 244-8528
Participant Code: 391191


Monday, April 1, 2013

Video: Using CUAHSI HIS to Assess Water Quality and Quantity Data in Regions of Hydraulic Fracturing

Last week's cyberseminar has been posted to YouTube. In case you missed it, Dr. Sue Brantley discussed the application of HIS to the Shale Network Research Coordination Network, which is gathering water quality and quantity data in areas that could be impacted by fracking (specifically the Marcellus Shale region). Watch the full video below: