Transcript CLEANER Collaborative Large-Scale Engineering Assessment

LARGE-SCALE
ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES:
THE ENGINEERING APPROACH
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Enhance our knowledge base on anthropogenically-stressed, large-scale,
geographically-distributed, but interdependent sites.
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Exploit new developments in information sensing, imaging,
transmission, storage, processing, and visualization.
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Focus on the dynamic, interdependent nature of the systems at the sites.
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Relate fluxes of materials and energy to anthropogenic impacts, and
their evolution over time.
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Devise science, engineering and policy options to prevent and mitigate
adverse impacts and better manage these sites.
Establish a cybernetwork of Environmental Field Facilities (EFFs) that
represent prototypical environments, thereby promoting information
exchange to facilitate synthesis and comparative research across all EFFs of
the network. This will have a profound impact on the science and practice of
decision support for environmental management.
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CLEANER
Collaborative Large-scale
Engineering Assessment Network
for Environmental Research
A cybernetworked infrastructure of
Environmental Field Facilities (EFFs) enables
development of engineering solutions and
policy options for the restoration and protection
of environmental resources.
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CLEANER: THE SCIENCE,
ENGINEERING, AND SOCIETAL
IMPLICATIONS
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Identify how hierarchies (scale and complexity) of environmental
systems and their linkages can be understood through integrated
assessment models.
Understand the functioning of large-scale, perturbed environmental
systems by elucidating stressors that influence the various outcomes,
especially through frequent observations facilitated with real-time devices
for sensing, data acquisition, data analysis, and data display .
Devise vital sign indicators, based on this understanding, both for system
condition and early warning.
Devise science, engineering and policy options for decision support to
prevent and mitigate adverse environmental impacts.
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CLEANER WORKSHOP
Sponsored by the National Science
Foundation
Division of Bioengineering and
Environmental Systems
Stanford University
Host and Workshop Chair
Professor Richard G. Luthy
December 4-5, 2001
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Stanford University Workshop
December 4 - 5, 2001
Attendees
Richard G. Luthy, NAE (Workshop Chair)
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Stanford University
(NSF/AC-ERE)
Michael D. Aitken
Environmental Science and Engineering
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
[President, Association of Environmental
Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP)]
Lisa Alvarez-Cohen
Civil Engineering
University of California Berkeley
Jacimaria R. Batista
Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Nevada Las Vegas
Andria M. Costello
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Syracuse University
Janet G. Hering
Environmental Engineering Science
California Institute of Technology
Kimberly L. Jones
Civil Engineering
Howard University
James E. Kilduff
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Sharon C. Long
Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Massachusetts
Jeanne M. VanBriesen
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
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Stanford University Workshop
December 4 - 5, 2001
NSF Observers
Dr. Nicholas L. Clesceri
Program Director
Environmental Engineering
Bioengineering and Environmental Systems
Division
Dr. Richard Fragaszy
Program Director
Geomechanics and Geotechnical Systems
Civil and Mechanical Systems Division
Dr. Bruce Hamilton
Director,
Bioengineering and Environmental Systems
Division
Dr. Miriam Heller
Program Director
Information Technology and Infrastructure
Systems
Civil and Mechanical Systems Division
Dr. Priscilla P. Nelson
Director,
Civil and Mechanical Systems
Division
Academic Observers
Arpad Horvath
Assistant Professor
Civil and Environmental
Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
Upal Ghosh
Research Associate
Civil and Environmental
Engineering
Stanford University
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Stanford University Workshop
December 4 - 5, 2001
Advisors
Adrienne Cooper
Assistant Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of South Carolina
Raymond C. Loehr, NAE
Professor
Civil Engineering
University of Texas Austin
Costel D. Denson Professor
Chemical Engineering
University of Delaware
(NSF/AC-ERE; NSF/ADCOM/ENG)
Orie Loucks
Ohio Eminent School of Applied
Ecosystems Studies and Professor of
Zoology
Miami University
Domenico Grasso
Professor and Chair
Picker Engineering Program
Smith College
James J. Morgan, NAE
Professor
Environmental Engineering Science
California Institute of Technology
Jerald L. Schnoor, NAE
Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Iowa
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What was Talked About
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What is CLEANER?
Why is CLEANER needed?
What is the intellectual merit of CLEANER?
What are the broader impacts of CLEANER?
Why does CLEANER have to be networked?
Why is CLEANER needed now?
What is distinctive about CLEANER?
What is the path forward?
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What is CLEANER?
CLEANER encompasses four general aspects:
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Network of Environmental Field Facilities (EFFs) - instrumented
for the acquisition and analysis of environmental data from
anthropogenically-stressed regions,
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Environmental cyberinfrastructure - a virtual repository of data
and information technology for engineering modeling, analysis
and visualization of data,
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Multidisciplinary research and education activities - a grid
designed to exploit the output of the instrumented sites and
networked information technology for engineering and policy
activities directed toward the protection, remediation, and
restoration of stressed environments and sustainability of
environmental resources, and
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Collaboratories - infrastructure to catalyze collaboration among
engineers, natural and social scientists, educators, policy makers,
industry, non-governmental organizations, the public, and other
stakeholders.
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Network of EFFs
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CLEANER will be a network of well-instrumented Environmental
Field Facilities (EFFs). Each EFF will have a distinctive
anthropogenically-stressed environment/region.
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Selection of EFFs will be driven by problems associated with
anthropogenic stresses on environmental systems.
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EFFs will employ an appropriate array of remote and on-site sensors.
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Innovative monitoring methods will be developed based upon
specific site characteristics and targeted stressors.
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Methods will be devised for real-time data acquisition from newlydesigned sensors and wireless transmission.
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Environmental
Cyberinfrastructure
• Development of a virtual repository for data and models as
well as a network to facilitate collaborations.
• Collection and organization of existing data for the EFFs
within a unified database structure.
• Standardization of input format for newly collected data.
• Testing and validation of new data with mass balance and
statistical approaches.
• Utilization of visualization for quantitative understanding.
• Integration of the cybernetworked infrastructure
architectured around the user.
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Multidisciplinary Research and
Education Activities
• Integration of research and education with environmental analysis,
decision-making, and management will catalyze interactions among
relevant disciplines. The instrumented sites and virtual repository for
data and models will enable the development of collaborative and
multidisciplinary research projects. Modeling will be a central
component of both experimental design and analysis and will facilitate
the integration of information within and among CLEANER sites.
• Data and models will support the elaboration of technical and policy
options for site protection, remediation or restoration, requiring
collaboration among stakeholders, including engineers, scientists,
social scientists, urban planners, and community members.
• Education and community outreach at EFFs will present opportunities
for experiential learning (e.g., through visitor centers).
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Collaboratories
• Facilitate collaboration between industry, policy makers, the
academic community, non-governmental organizations, the
public, and other stakeholders.
• Support research both at local and global scales in materials flow
accounting and analysis, and human perturbations to natural
materials flows, especially from urbanization, transportation, land
use, and product and process life-cycle assessment.
• Improve industrial pollution prevention, as well as, remedial
efforts through the data repository and associated models.
• Apply the network for improved public information and
education, especially as an “early warning” for system
contamination.
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WHY IS CLEANER NEEDED?
Reductionist and discrete disciplinary methodologies are no longer
adequate to evaluate and model large, complex environmental
systems and anthropogenic stresses.
Networked infrastructure is necessary for science and engineering
solutions and policy alternatives to assess, manage, and protect
complex, stressed environmental resources effectively.
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WHAT IS THE INTELLECTUAL
MERIT OF CLEANER?
• Assist in evaluating engineering options and in making management
decisions with improved measurement tools and integrated assessment
models. CLEANER will provide databases that will promote the
development and validation of models by reducing the need to make
assumptions about mechanisms, by narrowing the uncertainty in parameter
values, and by providing better information about time variability of model
parameters.
• Utilize an engineering approach, employing databases and predictive models
to define and characterize what sustainability means for a given system, help
foresee outcomes of change, and manage environmental systems by
controlling anthropogenic inputs, and applying remediation techniques.
• Promote sustainability by providing data that can be input to resource models,
and providing connections between science, engineering, social science, and
policy.
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WHAT ARE THE BROADER
IMPACTS OF CLEANER?
• The CLEANER network will standardize data collection, promote standard
protocols, and improve data comparability, quality assurance and quality
control to facilitate “lessons-learned” transferability among EFFs..
• The remotely accessible data archives will make data available before
publication and promote external evaluation and critique of data. These
archives will provide an unbiased, unaffiliated, non-political source of data
for the broader community, and promote data mining for trends and research
support.
• An important long-term effect will be to promote collaboration, technology
transfer, and communication within fields, among fields, between academic
and non-academic institutions, and among stakeholders.
• CLEANER has the potential to systemically influence engineering education
by engaging the academic community and educators at all levels in largescale, multidisciplinary, and complex real-world problems,
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WHY DOES CLEANER HAVE
TO BE A NETWORK?
• The CLEANER network, will facilitate the transfer and
fundamental understanding of modeling capabilities, research
strategies and methodologies, and technology development
among EFFs.
• The network will enable the identification of research trends
with national implications that couldn’t otherwise be detected
at autonomous sites.
• The network will serve as a distributed tool for education,
research and outreach.
• A significant feature of the network, the development of
models and advanced knowledge discovery, will identify
critical linkages between multiple interacting stressors that
might otherwise go undetected.
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WHY IS CLEANER NEEDED NOW?
*Urgency for need
• The growing population and commercial needs lead to increased demand for
high quality environmental conditions, e.g., water and current threats to water
resources, including pathogens, persistent bioaccumulative toxins, long-term
low-level releases, contaminant mixtures, emerging contaminants, groundwater
overdraft, and wastewater reuse issues.
• The same importance and urgency is apparent for the other environmental
media, i.e, air and land resources. In fact, a significant aspect of this urgency is
the intermedia fate and transport of contaminants.
*Emerging Technology
• The recent development of new technologies in sensing, data networking and
information technology has enabled improved collection and management of
critical environmental information. CLEANER will be a focused test bed for
environmental cyberinfrastructure development.
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WHAT IS DISTINCTIVE
ABOUT CLEANER?
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Provides a comprehensive engineering approach to evaluating regional
environmental impacts, accounting for biological, chemical, physical and
human influences.
Focuses on stressed environments.
Focuses on environmental resources critical to economic productivity,
human health and quality of life.
Establishes cause-and-effect relationships with feedback mechanisms for
implementing change (both engineering and policy).
Enables forecasting capabilities (via modeling) to evaluate impacts of
technical, political and social change on the study region.
Extends modeling scope to system and intersystem level.
Addresses environments inherently characterized by changes over broad
temporal scales.
Evaluates sensor needs relevant to EFF-specific requirements.
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Path Forward
A. Development of Concept/Content/Management Plan
1. Workshops on:
a. EFF concepts/budgets
b. Project scenarios and interaction with infrastructure design/modification
c. Environmental Cyberinfrastructure, and interactions with LTERs, NEON,
NEES
2. Expand disciplinary inclusiveness, beyond Environmental/Civil Engineers
B. Communication
1. Via a CLEANER Website
2. Within NSF and affiliates (e.g., AC/ENG, WG/ERE, AC/ERE, NSB)
3. Other agencies (e.g., EPA, NOAA, DOE, DOD, USGS)
4. NAE/NAS members, AEESP, ASCE, WEF, AWWA, SETAC, ACS, AGU,
ASM, etc.
C. Leadership (pro tem)
1. Community (Dick Luthy, Jerry Schnoor, Lisa Alvarez-Cohen , Andria,
Costello, Mike Aitken)
2. NSF (Nick Clesceri, Bruce Hamilton, Priscilla Nelson, Miriam Heller,
Rick Fragaszy)
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