WATERS Network MISSION STATEMENT: To transform understanding of the Earth’s water and related cycles across spatial and temporal scales to enable forecasting of critical water-related processes that affect and are affected by human activities… and develop scientific and engineering tools to enable more effective adaptive management of large-scale, human-impacted environments.

The Idea: The WATERS Network will: 1. Consist of (a) teams of investigators studying human-stressed landscapes, with an emphasis on water problems and questions; (b) a national network of interacting field sites; (c) specialized support personnel, facilities, and technology; and (d) integrative cyberinfrastructure to provide a shared-use network as the framework for collaborative analysis 2. Transform environmental engineering and hydrologic science research and education by: (i) providing advanced sensor systems for data collection and state-of- the-art informatics tools for data mining, analysis, visualization, and modeling of large-scale environmental issues; and (ii) engaging academics and others in collaborative, interdisciplinary studies of real-world problems 3. Enable more effective adaptive management of human-dominated, environments based on observation, experimentation, modeling, engineering analysis, and design

Network Coordination/Management Collaborative Tools and Resources e.g. Data and Model Repository Lake Tahoe Algal growth Urban Airsheds Health issues Mississippi Basin Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Great Lakes Water supply, invasive species U = Urban Water Systems Nutrients, metals, microbes, xenobiotics Hudson River PCBs, water supply Chesapeake Bay Loss of shellfish Neuse River Algal growth, Low O 2 U Hypothetical example of how the Network might look: Examples of stressed water and environmental resources Columbia River Contaminated soils Developing the scientific tools to enable dynamic adaptive management of human-dominated environmental systems through a collaborative measurement, modeling and analysis network Everglades Ecosystem restoration Inland lakes Nutrients, Hg Great Plains Groundwater U U U U U U U U

Chesapeake Bay Model Grid 50,000 cells Carl F. Cerco Environmental Laboratory US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station Vicksburg MI

Chesapeake Bay Model Validation Tributary Refinements to the Chesapeake Bay Model (2002) Carl F. Cerco, Billy H. Johnson, and Harry V. Wang

Carl F. Cerco Environmental Laboratory US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station Vicksburg MI Chesapeake Bay Model Validation Summer Averages

Aliasing – Sampling Carl F. Cerco Environmental Laboratory US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station Vicksburg MI

Modeling Suspension Feeders Coupling Suspension Feeders to the Chesapeake Bay Eutrophication Model Meyers, Di Toro, Lowe Water Quality and Ecosystem Modeling (2000),vol 1,p

NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office CB Multispecies Monitoring and Assessment Program (ChesMMAP) trawl maps Blue Crab Population Dynamics

Phase 5 Rivers, Segments, and Flow Calibration Stations Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model Gary Shenk EPA Chesapeake Bay Program 5/5/2006

Potomac River Flow (cfs) Gary Shenk EPA Chesapeake Bay Program 5/5/2006

TN (mg/L) Gary Shenk EPA Chesapeake Bay Program 5/5/2006 Potomac River TN (mg N/L)

TP (mg/L) Gary Shenk EPA Chesapeake Bay Program 5/5/2006 Potomac River TP (mg P/L)

Gary Shenk EPA Chesapeake Bay Program 5/5/2006 Potomac River TSS (mg/L) Gary Shenk EPA Chesapeake Bay Program 5/5/2006

Designing an EO Decide on a specific question –Do gravitational waves exist? –Design the observatory to answer it. –Physics example: LIGO Focus on a general question –How does a particular ecosystem work? –Design an observatory with all the available sensors that could be useful. –Physics example: Hubble telescope

The Sensor’s Not Available... Total Nitrogen/Phosphorus Sensor? –Measure everything that can be measured –Model without the details in certain state variables. Physics Example –High energy physics without the Superconducting Supercollider –Precision physics experiments

Modeling and EOs