Powell Center's Partnership with CUAHSI

A Message from the Executive Director of CUAHSI:

Dear Friends of Water Science,

I am excited to share with you the news that CUAHSI has been selected to be the Coordinating Hub for the Critical Zone (CZ) Collaborative Network. The 5-year cooperative agreement becomes effective September 1, 2020.

Our collaborators for this new venture are Jill Baron, U.S. Geological Survey; Beth Boyer, Pennsylvania State University; Chris Calloway, Renaissance Computing Center, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; Jeff Horsburgh, Utah State University; and Kerstin Lehnert, Lahmont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.  This is a strong team, all of whom have experience with Critical Zone Science and the previous Critical Zone Observatory Network. 

Operation of the Hub will include four primary tasks.

1. Enhance and integrate existing data services operated by CUAHSI and EarthChem to support the CZ community (Horsburgh, Lehnert, and Calloway): We intend to establish cyberinfrastructure with a distributed architecture that links existing data facilities and services, including HydroShare, EarthChem, SESAR (System for Earth Sample Registration), OpenTopography, and eventually other systems via a central CZ Hub that provides services for easy data submission, integrated data discovery and access, and computational resources for data analysis and visualization.  
2. Support discovery through community synthesis activities and via access to community data and modeling cyberinfrastructure (Baron and Boyer). We will utilize the resources of the USGS John Wesley Powell (JWP) Center for Analysis and Synthesis to catalyze CZ synthesis. We will follow the established and successful protocols of the JWP Center in the formation of three synthesis groups of the 5-year life of the project.
3. Broaden the CZ community through outreach and education activities (Boyer and Bales): We aim to create a broader, more inclusive community dedicated to CZ research; to promote dissemination of CZ information and resources to stakeholder communities inside and outside of academia; and to use CZ science as a platform to inspire STEM learning. 
4. Enhance collaboration among the CZ Thematic Clusters through coordination, sharing, community meetings, and outreach (All): We will manage the web presence of the network; grow collaborations with under-represented CZ scientists through a partnership with an existing CZ RCN; support cross-site training through grants; and facilitate meetings among network scientist and others in the community.

We are excited to meet our Thematic Cluster colleagues at a virtual meeting with the NSF Critical-Zone Collaborative Network Office next week. CUAHSI’s CZ Hub activities will substantially enhance existing CUAHSI water data services and grow our user community, broaden the CUAHSI community, and build on CUAHSI strengths of education and community support, We invite your participation as we move forward.
 

Stay well,
Jerad