In 2009, CUAHSI began the Community Hydrologic Modeling Platform (CHyMP) initiative to develop, disseminate and support community modeling tools and simulation models. In 2011, we saw the completion of the initial round of CHyMP activities with the third and final workshop, a Strategic and Implementation Plan, held last March at the University of California at Irvine.
View information, presentations and reports from the CHyMP workshops
The report from this third workshop, outlined several findings and recommendations to further advance the community modeling activities begun with CHyMP. The CUAHSI Board of Directors has identified advancing these ideas as a priority for the coming year, and CUAHSI is pursuing and facilitating community involvement with several follow on activities that address different aspects of CHyMP. We are encouraged by the interest in community modeling shown by the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies, and we hope that many of you will continue to be important collaborators in these various efforts.
A fundamental strength of CHyMP was the broad participation of key scientists from universities, the federal agencies and the private sector. The CHyMP workshop reports stressed the importance of future collaborations and leveraging partnerships with the existing agency efforts on continental scale modeling. The Integrated Water Resource Sciences and Services (IWRSS) consortium (external link) is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-led effort to forge partnerships between agencies with operational missions involving water. The initial IWRSS members (NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) are beginning a scoping-design-implementation exercise around developing a new modeling framework for comprehensive water resource prediction. This exercise recognizes that a physically robust basis is needed to meet various agency objectives, and will develop a forward-looking model framework that includes structures for assimilating new science, capabilities, and data as they become available. IWRSS recognizes the academic community as critical in the success of this effort, and CUAHSI is in discussion with IWRSS on ways to engage the university hydrologic modeling community.
NSF’s EarthCube initiative (external link) also presents opportunities to pursue several aspects of community hydrologic modeling. The goal of EarthCube is to “is to transform the conduct of research by supporting the development of community-guided cyberinfrastructure to integrate data and information for knowledge management across the Geosciences.” Several participants of past CHyMP workshops participated in the EarthCube Charrettes in October 2011 and May 2012, and CUAHSI is leading or contributing to several Earth Cube workshops, concept awards and community groups.
CUAHSI is committed to advancing community modeling through these avenues as well as continually seeking new opportunities to pursue other aspects. We thank you again for your participation and effort in the CHyMP planning initiative. The CHyMP workshops have provided a firm ground and clear vision from which to advance community modeling. We encourage you to contribute to these or other efforts and will keep you informed as these efforts progress.