Prototype system for multidisciplinary shared cyberinfrastructure: Chesapeake Bay Environmental Observatory

A prototype system for a Chesapeake Bay Environmental Observatory (CBEO) is under development by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the domains of environmental engineering, marine science, hydrology, ecology, and computer science. The vision is to provide new means of coupling and synthesizing field sampled and model generated data in a way that will open up new data sources to researchers and managers interested in understanding and resolving some currently unanswered questions and problems concerning hypoxia in the Chesapeake Bay. It will do so by developing advanced cyberinfrastructure to provide uniform nationwide access to new tools and a wide variety of data of disparate type, scale, and resolution, in both spatial and temporal domains, including model-derived data from past runs of major computational models for Chesapeake Bay hydrodynamics and water quality. Some key goals of the prototype project are to resolve the existing data source heterogeneities such that all relevant data are accessible through one interface, to archive and facilitate the analysis of model input and output files, and to provide new shared tools for data analysis, all with the goal of transforming the way scientific research and science-based management is conducted on the Chesapeake Bay. There are four project teams operating separately but in close and continuous communication. The teams' objectives are to make simultaneous and parallel advances in (1) environmental observatory network design and nationwide network access to Bay data (CBEO:N); (2) furthering the educational missions and outreach at the host institutions (CBEO:E); (3) providing a test-bed application that will allow the development and testing of new cyberinfrastructure and data analysis tools (CBEO:T); and (4) using all of the above-mentioned advances on focused science questions to demonstrate the transformative nature of the CBEO for addressing research questions and improving management approaches for large coastal systems that are heavily affected by humans. Finally, this CBEO cyberinfrastructure development is geared toward ensuring that the envisioned system is integrated into larger nationwide environmental observatory network initiatives (e.g., Water and Environmental Research System, Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks, National Ecological Observatory Network, and Long Term Ecological Research) thus helping to lead the way toward the development of a continental-scale environmental observatory network.