CUAHSI: PROMOTING DISCOVERY IN WATER SCIENCE THROUGH DATA, MODELING, AND COMMUNITY SERVICES

The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) is a research organization representing more than 100 U.S. universities and international water science-related organizations. CUAHSI provides water data services and infrastructure to the interdisciplinary water science community. CUAHSI services are designed to enable water researchers to more easily share data and knowledge with each other. Ultimately, the resources provided by CUAHSI can enhance the understanding of water processes on Earth. CUAHSI provides training in instrumentation and hosts specialty conferences relating to field instrumentation and the use of large and complex water data. CUAHSI provides support and outreach to graduate students, the water science community and the public via graduate student travel grants, in-person and online research seminars, and public discussions.

The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) is building on its existing capabilities to provide critical infrastructure and services to the interdisciplinary hydrologic sciences community. Three new CUAHSI initiatives include: (1) integrating of CUAHSI's two data services platforms, HIS and HydroShare, into a single system with an intuitive user experience; (2) supporting hydrologic discovery and community modeling through access to a new and unique set of data services; and (3) lowering the bar for entry to complex large-scale hydrologic modeling. CUAHSI's expansion of the community's access to hydrologic data through a simplified user interface is important both for enriching hydrologic research, but also to support continental scale modeling, which will increasingly be used to address water-quality and groundwater issues. Training and outreach activities provide important training and research opportunities for graduate students to explore meaningful and important interdisciplinary questions. CUAHSI hosts community meetings on the science of water prediction and ensemble modeling. Other successful activities from the past, such as Pathfinder and Instrumentation Discovery student travel grants, Hydoinformatics grants, Research Cyberseminars, Let's Talk about Water outreach events, and Biennial Colloquium, are continued under this award. The services included in this project are selected to provide maximum benefit to the community as well as to serve as a foundation for the advancement of hydrologic and related sciences.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.