Special Session:

The WATERS Network: Transforming Environmental Science and Engineering Research and Education through an Integrated Environmental Observatory Network

Session Organizers:
Co-Chairs: Nicholas L. Clesceri, CLEANER Project Office and William P. Ball, Johns Hopkins University

Session Description:
The WATERS Network will be an integrated real-time observing and analysis system for environmental research that will transform our ability to predict the quality and quantity of the nation's waters.

Water is essential for life. It is integral to maintaining good ecosystem health and humans make extensive use of it for agriculture, drinking and sanitation, industry and transportation needs. Despite its critical importance, degradation of our nation's waters is occurring at an unprecedented rate as once pristine waters are now challenged by a host of environmental stressors. These stressors act at multiple levels, ranging from local (e.g., changes in land and energy use; consumer product choice) to regional (e.g., intra- and inter-regional transport of nutrients and toxins) to global impacts (e.g., human-induced climate change). Population dynamics are a major source of stress, with growth being particularly critical along the coastal margins where nearly half of the U.S. population currently lives. Agricultural production is the largest source of non-point source pollution in U.S. waterways and is a growing concern. In areas of the country still used for agriculture, the switch from family farms to intensified large-scale operations has resulted in increased run-off of nutrients and other contaminants into nearby surface and ground waters, and especially so during extreme weather events. New consumer choices and market forces have altered the historical generation and use of energy, minerals and materials, impacting the quality and quantity of available water resources. And, human activities are suspected of altering our climate at regional and global scales in ways which may significantly impact future water availability and distribution.

Until now, engineers, environmental managers, and policy makers have been hampered in their ability to respond to rapid environmental changes because of deficiencies in our current scientific understanding of the dynamics and spatial variability of environmental processes, and in particular by our lack of data and understanding with regard to how long-term environmental phenomena and human activities interact. Correction of these deficiencies requires efforts that both cross traditional disciplinary boundaries and provide new types of field observations at time and distance scales that transcend what has been traditionally done in the laboratory or at a single field site. A new joint initiative of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering and Geosciences Directorates, the WATERS (WATer and Environmental Research Systems) Network, seeks to address these deficiencies by developing a collaborative scientific exploration and engineering analysis network that will transform our scientific understanding of how water quantity, quality, and related earth system processes are affected by natural and human-induced changes to the environment. While the U.S. has a long history of collecting data on traditional water quality and water quantity parameters, unfortunately most of these data are fragmented, site specific, and not easily accessible to researchers that are interested in investigating multi-scale environmental phenomena. The WATERS network aims to address this deficiency by deploying an integrated network of environmental observatories (field facilities that incorporate field sensors, data repositories, computational tools and other cyber-informatic capabilities) at numerous sites across the country that will include both the natural and built environments and cover a range of spatial scales, climate and land use/land cover conditions. These sites would provide supportive infrastructure for a variety of environmental research and management activities. They would include tools for collection, storage and dissemination of environmental data, interactive models that could be tested and employed in near-real time, and an integrative cyber-environment that would help multi-disciplinary, geographically dispersed teams of researchers work together effectively. In addition to the WATERS Network, NSF is also developing a number other environmental observing systems that tackle related but different issues, including the EarthScope, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and the Oceans Observatory Initiative (OOI). Ultimately and ideally, the WATERS network will be fully compatible and inter-operative with these other systems, thus providing a united and national-scale environmental observatory network for research and education.

This Session invites contemporary research awardees (regardless of funding source) to present their methods, findings and results related to distributed, collaborative and cross-disciplinary environmental observatory network activities. Preference will be given to presentations that present results indicative of the efficacy of such systems to enable transformative research and education on water availability and quality.

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