Infrastructure for collaborative science and societal applications in the Columbia River estuary

Abstract

To meet societal needs, modern estuarine science needs to be interdisciplinary and collaborative, combine discovery with hypotheses testing, and be responsive to issues facing both regional and global stakeholders. Such an approach is best conducted with the benefit of data-rich environments, where information from sensors and models is openly accessible within convenient timeframes. Here, we introduce the operational infrastructure of one such data-rich environment, a collaboratory created to support (a) interdisciplinary research in the Columbia River estuary by the multi-institutional team of investigators of the Science and Technology Center for Coastal Margin Observation & Prediction and (b) the integration of scientific knowledge into regional decision making. Core components of the operational infrastructure are an observation network, a modeling system and a cyber-infrastructure, each of which is described. The observation network is anchored on an extensive array of long-term stations, many of them interdisciplinary, and is complemented by on-demand deployment of temporary stations and mobile platforms, often in coordinated field campaigns. The modeling system is based on finite-element unstructured-grid codes and includes operational and process-oriented simulations of circulation, sediments and ecosystem processes. The flow of information is managed through a dedicated cyber-infrastructure, conversant with regional and national observing systems.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

estuaries / observations / numerical modeling / cyber-infrastructure / Columbia River

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Acknowledgments

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Murray Levine (1949‒2013): colleague, scientist, leader, and friend. He was a Professor at Oregon State University and the co-Director of CMOP. His contributions were fundamental to CMOP’s scientific paradigm and oceanographic campaigns.ƒThanks are due to the broader multi-institutional and interdisciplinary team of CMOP scientists and students, and to the stakeholders of the Columbia River basin (including universities, state and federal agencies and tribes). Special thanks are due to the Clatsop Community College for hosting the CMOP field station in Astoria and enabling CMOP’s use of the M/V Forerunner; and to the host entities for our endurance stations, in particular Oregon Department of Transportation (SATURN-01 and 09), Point Adams Packing Company (SATURN-03), Tongue Point Job Corp (SATURN-04) and U.S. Coast Guard (multiple stations).ƒWithin CMOP, special thanks are due to all past and present members of the CMOP operational teams: the Astoria field team, cyber-infrastructure team and modeling team. Of particular note: in the Astoria field team, (former member) Katie Rathmell for leading coastal glider operations and Jo Goodman for her work in SATURN station maintenance and instrument cross-comparison; in the cyber-infrastructure team, former member Alex Jaramillo for leading the development of the Data Explorer; and in the modeling team, former member Dr. Joseph Zhang (now at Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences) for an instrumental role in the early development of the Virtual Columbia River. Special thanks are also due to the AUV team members Dr. Andrey Shcherbina and Trina Litchendorf; the SeaFlow team, especially Dr. François Ribalet; Ethan VanMatre for his contributions to the SWAP telemetry; Drs. Thomas Sanford (University of Washington), Fred Prahl and Jim Lerczak (Oregon State University) and Curtis Roegner (NOAA) for leading land-based and vessel-based field campaigns; Dr. Alexandra Cravo (Universidade do Algarve, Portugal) for many thoughtful suggestions; and Amy Johnson, CMOP Managing director—and, before her, Phil Barrett—for coordinating licenses and permits for the SATURN stations. Special thanks are also due to Bonnie Gibbs for thorough proofreading of the manuscript. Finally, special thanks are due to the captains and crew of all the vessels—from UNOLS, Clatsop Community College and Quinault Indian Nation—used by CMOP, without whom our shipboard science, and AUV and glider deployments, would not have been possible.ƒThe U.S. National Science Foundation (OCE-0424602) has provided primary support for CMOP’s exploration of new scientific paradigms for estuarine understanding and prediction. Stakeholders of the Columbia River provided additional motivation and support; thanks are due in particular to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bonneville Power Administration, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Unites States Geological Survey, the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership and the U.S. Entity for the Columbia River Treaty Review. Simulation databases and supporting observations are an integral part of SATURN, a CMOP-maintained sub-system of Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), the Pacific Northwest arm of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). This work used the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, XSEDE (Towns et al., 2014), which is supported by National Science Foundation grant number ACI-1053575.

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2015 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg