Michael Piasecki

An integrated system for publishing environmental observations data

Over the next decade, it is likely that science and engineering research will produce more scientific data than has been created over the whole of human history. The successful use of these data to achieve new scientific breakthroughs will depend on the ability to access, integrate, and analyze these large datasets. Robust data organization and publication methods are needed within the research community to enable data discovery and scientific analysis by researchers other than those that collected the data. We present a new method for publishing research datasets consisting of point observations that employs a standard observations data model populated using controlled vocabularies for environmental and water resources data along with web services for transmitting data to consumers. We describe how these components have reduced the syntactic and semantic heterogeneity in the data assembled within a national network of environmental observatory test beds and how this data publication system has been used to create a federated network of consistent research data out of a set of geographically decentralized and autonomous test bed databases.

Engineering new paths to water data

Considering the scope of water resources research, data can be available from many different sources that use different nomenclature, storage technologies, interfaces and even languages, which make its discovery a hard and time-consuming task. This paper addresses the development of an ontology-aided, clustered search mechanism that enables querying multiple hydrologic and environmental data repositories through a single interface regardless of the heterogeneity that exists between these sources.

Metadata Community Profiles for the Semantic Web

Metadata is needed to facilitate data sharing among geospatial information communities. Geographic Metadata Standards are available but tend to be general and complex in nature and also are not well suited to overcome semantic heterogeneities across vocabularies of different domains and user communities. Current formalizations of metadata standards are not flexible enough to allow reuse and extension of metadata specifications, in particular for Web based information systems. In order to address this problem we propose a methodology to create community specific metadata profiles for the Semantic Web by reusing metadata specifications and domain vocabularies encoded as resources for the Web. This ensures that these community profiles are semantically compatible so they can be used in Web based information systems. The ISO-19115:2003 geographic metadata standard is the most general standard available and is being used in conjunction with the Web Ontology Language as the expression medium to test the methodology for each one of the possible extensions documented in ISO-19115:2003. It is shown that it is possible to extend and reuse metadata specifications and vocabularies distributed in the Web using the Web Ontology Language, by utilizing the languages flexibility to create restrictions on inherit properties and to make interferences on web distributed resources. Examples from the area of Hydrology are provided to demonstrate the technical details of the approach.

Ontology based web simulation system for hydrodynamic modeling

Abstract Hydrodynamic models generally deal with large sets of data and utilize substantial computational resources. Powerful, robust servers with extensive storage capabilities are desirable for rapid execution. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to effort those kinds of facilities whereas a centralized computer system together with a user access interface can be a viable alternative for many clients. The simplest way a client can communicate with the central simulation server is by a web browser because it is available as a pre-installed application on most every computing platform purchased today. This type of environment is called web based simulation or WBS. In this study, the concepts necessary to design and develop a WBS for the simulation of hydrodynamic processes using legacy (FORTRAN) code are introduced. A formal specification of the simulation domain or an ontology has been developed that is the underlying concept to share, retrieve, and move the simulation data between the different components of the WBS. This ontology can also be used for future analysis and reuse of the simulation domain concepts and the associated data sets.

A semantic annotation tool for hydrologic sciences

Semantic annotations are playing an increasingly important role in the world of metadata, more specifically when dealing with semantic heterogeneities between information systems. The need to bring together disparate data sources (in terms of syntax and semantics) so they can be searched simultaneously from a single search environment has become one of the most challenging tasks in developing information systems that span multiple communities as is common in the geosciences. The key problem lies in the legacy information systems, in which, at the time of development, each system used (and continues to use) its own semantic framework to identify variable codes and names, as well as annotating the collected data with metadata. This lack of a common metadata framework as well the uncoordinated use of descriptors and controlled vocabularies has led to a situation in which synonyms and hyponyms abound. Experience has shown that a centralized system with just one vocabulary for all is not feasible. Rather, in order to overcome these discrepancies it is important to realize that heterogeneity is an inevitable aspect of the scientific data world that needs to be accommodated. This paper describes the development and end use of an application that is designed to connect arbitrary variable names to specific concepts in layered search ontology. We will demonstrate the utility of this application through its deployment for the Consortium for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences Inc. (CUAHSI) network of testbeds and report on the issues that emerged carrying out variable and concept tagging. These issues concern specificity of a concept, ancillary information needed when identifying proper ontology locations, and multiple appearances of variables at different locations.

Availability and coverage of hydrologic data in the US geological survey National Water Information System (NWIS) and US Environmental Protection Agency Storage and Retrieval System (STORET)

The need for a unified and improved data access system for the nation’s vast hydrologic data holdings has increased over the past few years as researchers strive for better understanding the human impact on the nation’s water cycle. Large mission oriented data repositories such as the USGS’ National Water Information System (NWIS) and EPA’s Storage and Retrieval System (EPA STORET) play a crucial role in providing a substantial amount of the nationwide coverage, however they do differ regionally in terms of coverage (parameters) and geospatial data density. Besides the differences in geographic distribution, repositories tend to undergo changes in mission statements and as such have different foci in their data collection activities that change as time progresses. This paper places the two water information systems next to each in an attempt to work out the differences in terms of coverage and content and how they complement each other when overlaid. This is done through the use of a number the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information Systems components, namely a web-service suite called WaterOneFlow that permits interrogation of the available data content of a national water metadata catalogue into which these two information systems have been integrated.

Attitudes toward post-earthquake water and sanitation management and payment options in Leogane, Haiti

The Haitian government passed a law in 2009 to decentralize water utility management and improve cost recovery. This study identifies the attitudes of the public towards payment for and management of water and sanitation, several months after the 2010 earthquake, through a survey (N = 171) and semi-structured interviews (N = 19) in Leogane, Haiti. A majority of survey respondents were willing to pay for water and sanitation, which aligns with the fee-based approach of the 2009 law. Significant differences were found between geographic locations, suggesting that a neighbourhood-level approach to water and sanitation is appropriate.

Development of a Hydrologic Information System for CUAHSI

A Hydrologic Information and Observing System (HIOS) is being designed and developed by a group of academic hydrologists and the San Diego SuperComputer Center. This is part of a research program supported by the National Science Foundation through the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc (CUAHSI). HIOS components include a hydrologic observations database, a digital watershed which synthesizes the hydrologic observations with GIS, remote sensing and weather and climate data, and a hydrologic analysis and visualization component to quantify fluxes and flows of water and constituents through the phases of the hydrologic cycle for a watershed region. Digital products from all HIOS components are stored in a Hydrologic Digital Library. The Neuse basin in North Carolina is being used as the illustrative watershed for development

Participatory engineering for recovery in post-earthquake Haiti

Participatory engineering has been called for after major catastrophes, yet is often bypassed due to countervailing implementation of ‘quick fixes’. While immediate expert-driven solutions may be attractive, in the long-term they may be ineffective and inconsistent with the goals and capacities of local stakeholders. This article discusses the findings of National Science Foundation research by a team of three engineers and one social scientist who visited Haiti twice, four and seven months after the January 2010 earthquake, to investigate community participation in water and sanitation engineering processes in Léogâne. Methods included interviews with local inhabitants, water-sector actors, and government agencies; inspections of the engineering of the existing water and sanitation system; surveys of the affected population; and a participatory workshop to which numerous community-based organizations were invited. The research tests the potential for engineers to develop stakeholder-based participatory processes in a post-disaster context, which is hypothesized to produce better outcomes than traditional top-down authoritative planning processes. Focusing on the sanitation sector within a multi-stakeholder arena, the article analyzes the potential for various kinds of interactions amongst actors during unfolding decision-making processes at multiple scales, and assesses how each might contribute to better post-disaster engineering and ultimately more sustainable water and sanitation systems.

IM2: A Web-Based Dissemination System for Now and Forecast Data Products

This paper describes the various steps to develop a web-based information system for now- and forecast oceanographic and meteorological data products. An initial user survey delineates the user needs and requirements and determines to what extent and level the web-system would need to be developed. In order to have a globally relocatable system it needs to be independent of the operating system (achieved through the use of JAVA) and to have an underlying data structure that separated data content from data description (achieved through the use of metadata concepts). At the same time, it must permit data display of various kinds, for example, time series for stations, contour plots for spatially continuous data variables, and animations over time. Also, the system needs to be flexible to accept various raw data sets in “pull” and “push” mode, be easily adaptable to different data products, and at the same time permit speedy access and response times for the user. The latter involved the use of data compression techniques, and also the use of “thin” client configurations to accommodate less powerful client-end machines.