The Project:
• Why SEA-BASINS
• Implementation
• Partner Network

NAGA
• Strategy
• SE Asia Models
• Informatics

Active Basins
• Mekong Basin
• Sub-basins

• Restricted Papers
• Restricted Data

NAGA: Informatics

How to solve the information management and computational issues of linking such complicated models and observations and then making the products accessible to a wide variety of users are so great as to constitute significant challenges in information technology and transfer ("informatics"). Over Southeast Asia we will have literally millions of grid cells upon which dynamic calculations must be performed. The data, even for one specific sub-model, come in many different formats and resolutions: spatially, from cm (rarely) to 10m (often) to ~1 km (common); temporally, from every second to once per year or less. Adding to the problems, data come from many sources: this produces more possible variations of collected data, processed forms of collected data, transformed sub-model outputs, and hypothetical data constructed by users who want to see how some process works or to test a hypothesis. The challenge is to efficiently store and analyze data from multiple data sources in metadata referenced mass storage and knowledge bases.

Such complex information must be conveyed to multiple parties, from the student and the scientist involved in developing the information systems to the end-user decision-maker. Recent advances in visualization technology combined with the dramatic increase in computer communication, including the World Wide Web, are making this possible. For example, in a companion project (PRISM) a "Virtual Puget Sound" is being "brought to life" by wrapping the linked models with a Visual Interface, creating a user-friendly, interactive virtual environment. This resource can then be made available via the web to many different types of users. Interface development will include World Wed Web-based tools to access data base structures, create interactive visualizations and extract customized information from the models and data.

**NOTE: In order to view the movies in the next paragraph, you will need to install the latest versions of QuickTime Player and Shockwave.**

For example, an observer can "fly" through a computer-generated map of a drainage basin (e.g., Big Beef Creek) by clicking and holding the mouse on the map. The different colored boxes on the map are icons that "contain" various kinds of scientific data, interactive, and collaborative features. To then examine the full complexity of how moisture is distributed across and affected by the landscape as a function of climate is illustrated by visualizing the results of a linked atmosphere-land-surface model of a 3-day period of a snowstorm over the Snoqualmie River basin. The subsequent fate of pollutants moving from land down rivers to the sea is one of the key elements in water resources. The example of coliform bacteria following storm overflow in the Duwamish River moving down into Puget Sound shows how the pollutant plume remains high in the water column and sweeps along the shore. A model of circulation in the fjord of Hood Canal can then be linked to water quality models including the riverine inputs. Examples of changes in water level in central Puget Sound could be applied, for example, to "seeing" changes in the level of a river relative to its floodplain, where subtle changes in level are critical to the habitat for fish production.

It is our intention to bring these capabilities to SEA-BASINS.