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STEWARDSHIP
Cyberinfrastructure is not just for “computer geeks.” Interdisciplinary teams are putting it to uses never before imagined to protect natural resources and address some of the world’s toughest humanitarian challenges. It’s all part of Clemson’s commitment to improve the quality of life for people in South Carolina and the world.
Intelligent River ™is changing the science of river management using
cyberinfrastructure and remote data gathering. Using monitoring equipment
on a sophisticated network, researchers gather information on groundwater,
surface water quality and quantity, weather conditions and other ecological
measurements across a 3,500-acre tract.
Until now, environmental policy decisions have been based on historical data, some of it decades old. Historical data does not reflect today’s demands on lakes and rivers to support the growing needs for industry, homes, recreation and power generation.
Center for Watershed Excellence
EPA names Clemson a Center of Excellence for Watershed Management in South Carolina
S.C. Water Resources Conference focuses on communities and collaboration
A remarkable collaboration of scientists in ecology, natural resources and computer engineering is developing new cyberinfrastructure technology to collect and transmit environmental data from remote watershed locations, including rivers and dense forests.
The collaboration, trademarked as the Intelligent River™, is tracking water’s movement through rivers, lakes, soil and trees. Base stations relay information through the wireless network to a Web site that displays real-time changes in water volume, temperature, dissolved oxygen and pollutant levels. This data can guide policy decisions to balance economic development with environmental conservation in areas such as water withdrawals and discharges and pollution control.
Clemson stats on World Community Grid
Clemson University turns idle computer time into solutions for world problems
Collecting the unused power of Windows computers in Clemson’s instructional laboratories enables scientists around the world to tackle climate change, cancer and other humanitarian issues.
Clemson’s School of Computing is contributing more than one year of computing time per day through the World Community Grid run by IBM. Nearly 400,000 teams around the world participate in the effort, and Clemson consistently ranks among the top five universities in the United States for computing power contributed.
Through the grid, Clemson’s 1,500 campus computers are linked with others around the world and put to work for humanitarian causes when they are not being utilized by students. The World Community Grid surpasses the computing power of supercomputers. By splitting complex computations into small pieces that can be processed simultaneously, the grid reduces research time from years to weeks or months, saving money as well as lives.
A visionary plan is under way to create an international computing network to support the diverse groups of people who manage parks, from local to international. The Open Parks Grid can also benefit those who conduct environmental research, conservation and education programs related to parks, and those who make policy decisions about park lands.
Open Parks Grid (pdf)
Open Parks Grid Poster (pdf)
Design and deployment of social networking tools will foster the creation of a network community for consortium members. The grid will gather and disseminate the best available science about parks and protected areas, including data on climate change, ecosystem composition, endangered species and park visitation patterns. The project is being beta tested at four national parks in the southeastern United States: Congaree National Park, Cowpens National Battlefield, Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Augusta Canal National Heritage Area.
The interdisciplinary team’s efforts support environmental conservation through shared resources and target cyberinfrastructure challenges of data fusion and data mining that go well beyond park management.
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