The CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System (HIS) is an Internet-based system for sharing hydrologic data (his.cuahsi.org). Data users can use CUAHSI HIS and clients such as HydroDesktop to search for, retrieve, organize and analyze data from multiple sources. Data publishers can use CUAHSI HIS to organize, store and publish their data using the HydroServer component hydroserver.codeplex.com/). Registering your data with CUAHSI HIS ensures that it is available and discoverable by a growing user base within the water science community. If you are interested in contributing data to CUAHSI HIS, but not maintaining your own HydroServer, CUAHSI can host and publish hydrologic data on a CUAHSI-maintained HydroServer. HydroServer capability currently includes support for point observations and time series data using the Observations Data Model (ODM) database. CUAHSI will work with you to load your data to our HydroServer, and maintain and register the data with HIS Central. Data are hosted by CUAHSI but still attributed to and identified by the individual data provider, and you retain control of what and when data are loaded and published on our server. CUAHSI currently hosts data services from 7 universities and organizations. For more detailed information, contact our User Support Specialist Yoori Choi (ychoi@cuahsi.org).

CUAHSI HIS data and open source hydrologic data tools are freely available to the water science community, and are being accessed by a growing community of users. Our data access client, HydroDesktop, has been downloaded 5055 times in the previous 3 months (September to November) and is available at hydrodesktop.codeplex.com and his.cuahsi.org/hydrodesktop.html. A new and recommended release version (HydroDesktop 1.2.625) was released on October 14, 2011 and has been downloaded 399 times from the codeplex site. This client allows users to search and access the data registered in HIS Central. As of November 18, there were 76 registered data services available, representing over 5 billion data values. HIS Central is maintained by the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and SDSC tracks and provides usage statistics and information to data providers. In the previous six months, SDSC reports that HIS central has received on average nearly 20,000 "get values" requests per month to retrieve time series.

CUAHSI is pleased to announce its second corporate member—KISTERS. KISTERS offers Off-The-Shelf software solutions for the management of water, air and energy. KISTERS offers high-capacity scalable systems, which can easily be tailored to large or small customers and local demands. KISTERS software is in operation in 6 of the 7 continents of the world: North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. Their customer base is made up of private companies from small firms up to well-known multinationals, as well as federal, state and local public administrative authorities.

If you are interested in learning more about the requirements for and benefits of corporate membership, please visit our Corporate Affiliate Membership page.

The USGS John Wesley Powell Center and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will jointly fund two to three proposals for Working Groups to work on water science synthesis projects. FY 2012 proposals due November 30, 2011. FY 2013 proposals due April 30, 2012. Read our "Dear Colleague" Letter about this important opportunity.

See the USGS Powell Center web page for more information or download the fact sheet and the USGS/NSF Joint Agreement.

Each year, in preparation for the annual Fall AGU meeting, we publish a list of "Selected Sessions of Special Interest." Typically, these highlighted sessions cross the boundaries of the Hydrology (H) section as they are relevant to water science. Since originally publicized in this newsletter in June, we have augmented our listing. Please check our Selected Water Science-related Sessions web page for the latest compilation. In addition to special sessions, there are a number of workhshops and town halls that may be of interest to the water science community, including those listed below.

• Communicating Your Science: Panel and Workshops" will be held on Sunday, 4 December, 1000h-1700h. See the workshop web page for registration information.

• Navigating the NSF System Workshop — Wednesday, 7 December, 0900h-1200h. San Francisco Marriott Marquis, Golden Gate A [more details].

• Community Earth-surface Science: Articulating a Vision for the Future — Thursday, 8 December, 1230h-1330h. Moscone West, Room 2005 [more details | PDF document].

The impetus for this CUAHSI web-based outreach effort came directly from the community: from questions posed by undergraduate students to CUAHSI staff attending community conferences such as GSA and AGU. Students wanted to know which universities had graduate programs in water research and resources management. CUAHSI's online resource now lists more than 100 programs from over 60 universities and organizations in 38 U.S. states as well as six international locations. The list continues to grow as CUAHSI actively reaches out to member and non-member universities for additional program listings. Visitors to the graduate water programs page simply click on a state to display relevant programs in that state. A special link displays international offerings. To view this listing, please visit the Graduate Water Programs web page.

All universities are welcome to submit multiple programs for listing if different programs are offered in different departments or colleges (e.g., engineering, earth sciences, natural resources, etc.) Interdisciplinary programs are often of particular interest to students. You do not need to be a CUAHSI member university to have your program(s) listed.

We simply ask you to supply (1) the logo you would like displayed (generally your university logo), (2) a sentence or two describing the program, and (3) the URL a student can follow to see more information. Please send the information to Conrad Matiuk (cmatiuk@cuahsi.org) for posting to the web site. Again, multiple programs may be included for each university, and our international affiliates and non-members are welcome to list their programs as well.

We thank those universities who have contributed to this effort and we encourage those universities who have not yet submitted their programs to actively participate in this important outreach project.

CUAHSI presented a wide-ranging series of webinars this fall on various topics related to using the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System (HIS) in addition to the series titled "Earth Observatories for Interdisciplinary Science: Reports from Critical Zone Observatories and Water, Sustainability and Climate Studies." In the Spring 2012 cyberseminar series, CUAHSI will highlight NSF's Water, Sustainability and Climate Program supports research that aims to "to understand and predict the interactions between the water system and climate change, land use (including agriculture, managed forest and rangeland systems), the built environment, and ecosystem function and services through place-based research and integrative models." CUAHSI thanks the various principal investigators from the CZOs and the developers from the HIS project that shared their vision and experiences with the water science community. All the webinars were recorded and are available for download at the links provided below.