A Proposal for the Establishment of
Hydrologic Measurement Technology Support
John Selker, John Durant, Rosemary Knight, Breck Bowden, Jennifer Jacobs
With the
Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI)
Outline
Executive Summary
1. Introduction
1.1. Context
1.2. Scientific justification
2. Tasks in the Implementation of the HMTF
2.1. Support of Competitive Proposals
2.2. Support of Hydrologic Observatories
2.3. Training and Outreach
2.4. Continuous Improvement
3. Budget
4. Implementation plan
5.1 Timeline
5. Cited Literature
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Summary
Major advances in measurement technology, supported by satellite observations and
computing power, provide the opportunity to greatly increase our understanding of the
world’s hydrosphere in the coming decades. Recent advances include new in-situ
measurement equipment coupled with satellite observations and ever-increasing
computing power. For these new discoveries to be realized Since cost is considerable, a
national-level investment in measurement infrastructure will be needed. This proposal
describes a pilot service organization, the Hydrologic Measurement Technology Facility
(HMTF), that will catalyze hydrologic research by putting key measurement technologies
and logistical support in the field to support peer-reviewed researcher projects.
The facility’s operations receives its impetus from are woven into the NSF peer-review
process. The review process will…? For this reason, Tthe support of projects by the
HMTF will be approved by the Hydrologic Sciences panel during their regular evaluation
process. This approach is inspired by the approach of VECO (VECO?? What is VECO?).
As utilization of the HMTF supported monitoring is written into funded proposals, the
HMTF will hire staff and purchase needed equipment to respond to these needs. In this
way, the HMTF will build the ability to support state-of-the-art research with current
technologies.
Much of the instrumentation and assistance in using these instruments provided through
HMTF to the community will neither be purchased nor even touched by the HMTF: the
HMTF will facilitate an instrumentation marketplace, where people looking for particular
instruments are put in contact with those that have them. [How does calibration and
equipment usage instructions get transferred? Will the HMTF be responsible for
generating on-line standard operating procedures?]
. An example of this type of system is the USGS Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility
(HIF), which will open its doors to CUAHSI scientists through a HMTF portal. In
addition, scientists with specialized skills and equipment will be supported in providing
these contributions to projects. The HMTF will assist with establishment of rental rates
and shipping logistics.
Beyond direct intervention in support of NSF-funded science [can this equipment be used
by other funded research at established rental rates?], the HMTF sees opportunities for
support of hydrologic measurement through community service tasks. Support of an
instrumentation workshop and a continuing series of short-courses on specific critical
technologies will be coordinated. The short courses will be sponsored by the HMTF to
communicate new methods to the community, and will generally be presented
immediately before or after relevant major scientific meetings. In addition, the
development of a peer-reviewed on-line “Encyclopedia of Methods in Hydrologic
Measurement” will be shepherded through assignment of an editorial board. The HMTF
will build upon the USGS Techniques of Water Resources Investigations series to build a
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comprehensive citable collection of methods employed by current researchers, invaluable
for both educational and scientific applications.
This proposal describes an orderly, demand driven start up of this facility. The initial
pilot institution for the HMFT will be Oregon State University. A Facilities Advisory
Panel (FAP) will be established to provide external scientific guidance for the HMTF,
and annual review of HMTF performance. [Appropriate to state that the HMTF will
move every 2 years here?]
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1. Introduction
1.1 Context
Water and its abundance, availability, quality, and predictability are imperative natural
resource issues. Population pressures and global changes over the next decades will
increase focus and concern over diminishing stocks of useable water and increasingly
uncertain water supply, as well as the frequency of extreme hydrologic events (i.e., floods
and droughts), and risk of exposure to water-borne contaminants, pollutants, and disease.
These trends result from greater human pressures on available water supplies and
delivery systems, changing patterns of land use and development, and the prospect of a
rapidly changing and increasingly variable climate. In this environment, evaluating
tradeoffs between competing uses and claims for water are likely to pose significant
challenges for water management and policy, requiring sound scientific information and
understanding. The ability to predict the effects of global change on the hydrologic
regimes across the earth is requisite to the orderly development of society.
In spite of the growing societal need for water, the science of water—hydrology and
related fields—has lagged behind in its ability to provide critical information and to
predict the consequences and impacts of hydrologic events. For example, we cannot
predict the timing of landslides, the heights of floodwaters during major floods, the fates
of contaminants released into surface or subsurface waters, or the magnitude or duration
of regional droughts with the accuracy necessary for effective countermeasures for public
safety and health. These are the aspects that make it to the local newsroom. At scientific
meetings across the globe it is further recognized that the needs and opportunities have
grown exponentially over the past decades, and the present strategy of response is not
adequate to meet this challenge.
Improving our predictive capacity in hydrology will require a fundamental transformation
and upgrading of the ways we conduct hydrologic science, including facilities, training,
observational networks, data and information systems, education, and outreach. This is
the overall work of CUAHSI. This document presents CUAHSI’s proposal for
transforming the technological infrastructure [If you take technological infrastructure as
all support structure that technology can supply, it sounds like you are also also talking
about a data clearinghouse, etc. Isn’t that covered under another proposal? Perhaps it
should more explicitly say “hydrologic sciences instrumentation infrastructure” or some
such.] for hydrologic sciences by initiating a national Hydrologic Measurement
Technology Facility (HMTF). We present the scientific justification for new
infrastructure, outline the goals and objectives of the facility, envision how such a facility
would operate, and consider an implementation and funding strategy.
1.2 Scientific Justification
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Hydrology encompasses a wide range of sub-disciplines, including surface and
subsurface physical hydrology, biogeochemistry, hydrometerology, geomorphology, and
ecohydrology, and includes observations, models and experiments over scales ranging
from very small (e.g., dynamics of aerosols and individual raindrops) to very large (e.g.,
global water cycles and fluxes). Fundamental scientific problems confronting modern
hydrology include
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developing sufficiently accurate full accounting of water budgets over continents
and oceans;
characterizing trends and variability of hydrologic processes under past, present,
and potential future climates;
predicting regional patterns, causes, and magnitudes of floods, droughts, and
other extreme hydrologic phenomena;
quantifying rates of movement of water, sediment, solutes, and contaminants in
surface and subsurface waters;
coupling carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles; and
exploring linkages among the hydrosphere, geosphere, and ecosphere over a
wide range of spatial and temporal scales.
upscaling of processes from the scale of study to larger scales of interest (e.g.,
upscale reach studies to watersheds or porous media models to basins, etc.).
To make progress towards solving these problems, accurate measurements must be taken
at all scales, from soil pores up to watersheds, as part of intensive field campaigns.
Fortunately, there has been an explosion of new technology in the last decade. Examples
of this include: new satellites for remote sensing of water, snow, and climatic trends; and
digital ground-penetrating radar for observing movement of water through the soil and
geologic mantle. [It seems you need a sentence here to motivate the link between the
previous and where you go next. …or maybe the next just starts a new paragraph?] At
present, few hydrologists have access to costly instruments that measure physical,
chemical, and biological properties of interest in the field at any scale, or trace movement
of water and its fellow biochemical wanderers [arguably redundant with “physical
properties of interest”]. Existing equipment is often prohibitively expensive,
prohibitively complex in setup and operation, and requires high levels of expertise to
obtain valid data [This is why I wondered about your statement in the abstract about the
HMTF being only a brokerage of sorts…It seems almost more effective to me to
warehouse the equipment, calibrate it fresh before and after each use, plus provide
technical support in setup and use. My initial model when I knew you were going to do
this was 1 PhD manager to keep the focus on research (ideally, this keeps the guiding
principles pure), 1 accountant/property manager/purchasing, plus as many technicians as
the work supports. Of course, everybody would be cross-trained. This provides variety
in the job which relieves some of the boredom that is inevitable in such a service industry
type position.]. Although some researchers at national laboratories and faculty at certain
universities are able to use limited sets of instruments, it is essentially unheard of to have
access to the suites of equipment, required in parallel, necessary for critical
measurements. The time, expertise, and support needed to design new instrumentation is
likewise far beyond the scope of the individual hydrologist. Even were researchers able
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to access and employ instruments in the field, there is also no standard for data transfer
and access by the broad community, with the result that many measurements see limited
use. The HTMF will provide the infrastructure to bring contemporary tools to scientists
engaged in hydrologic discovery.
The HMTF will be a service organization that will further hydrologic research by
achieving its governing tenets consist of the following components:
a. Peer-selected support of competitive proposals, as selected by the NSF peer-review
process [will there be an HMTF representative on this committee at least in an advisory
capacity?], through provision of to state-of-the-art instruments, measurement systems,
and expertise. as required This allows for an improved ability to obtain critical data for
the elucidation of hydrological processes;
b. Support of the CUAHSI Long Term Hydrologic Observatories [You have not
mentioned these previously…is a sentence of explanation warranted?] from during both
development and to operations;
c. Training and outreach to improve the understanding and application of contemporary
instrumentation.
d. Laboratory research for the adaptation and development of instrumentations required
to allow scientific discovery in hydrology.
2. Implementation of the Hydrologic HMTF
2.1 Support of Competitive Proposals
[You’ve changed formats to indented paragraphs in this section.] The operational model
for support of principle investigator (PI) instrumentation requirements of the CUASHI
Hydrological Measurements Technical Facility (HMTF, Fig xx?) is ‘demand-driven’ in that it is
directly responsive to the needs of the investigator community. This procedure is inspired by the
very successful model of arctic infrastructure support provided by VECO [acronym?]
(http://www.vecopolar.com/). Investigators will continue to prepare and submit proposals to the
NSF as they currently do. Where investigators propose to use specialized equipment or mount
significant field campaigns, the need and rationale for these approaches is explained in the
proposal narrative, as usual. However, in preparing their budgets and budget justifications,
investigators focus primarily on the direct and indirect costs of doing the research and do not
quantify the equipment or logistic costs. Rather, the need for specialized equipment and logistics
support is explained and justified in special section of the budget justification set aside for this
purpose. The initial [initial in the sense of during the first year or two, or in the sense that the
involvement of the HMTF always starts here?] role of the HMTF is to prepare feasibility
assessments and costing estimates for the proposed activities.
The procedure by which the HMTF enters the project proposal process is triggered with
the submission of a proposal to the NSF. The HMTF director will be an ex officio member of the
NSF program review panel and will have access to proposal in the Fastlane database for those
proposals which include requests for HMTF support. It will be the HMTF Director’s
responsibility to scan incoming proposals and extract the pertinent information from the
paragraphs requesting support for special equipment and logistics. The HMTF Director will
assess the feasibility (e.g., can the measurements be made? [It seems to me that this is the
responsibility of the review committee, but the director should provide input as they can. With
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the broad range of techniques, is it realistic that you would be able to hire someone capable of
doing this all of the time? It may be a mistake to combine and confuse the logistics with the
technical efficacy. Also, politically, you might want to keep the director out of the position of
putting the kibosh on someone’s research. He should be seen as a resource, and it should be his
responsibility to teach use of equipment, not evaluate ability of the researcher.]) and will provide
a “preliminary quotation” of the cost of the proposed equipment and logistics needs and will
assess the technical support required to deliver these needs [Actually, I think it best to send the
quote to the PI for review of accuracy first…i.e., to see if the director got it right. This provides a
necessary check and balance.]. The quotation will be guaranteed by the HMTF to be within +/50% of the final assessment, but not a firm bid, given the lack of communication with the
proposing authors at this stage of the process [why do you need a lack of communication? The
communication with the PI would only need to discuss equipment needs, including dates, not
costs. This actually may be critical in the review process since you may need to schedule the
same equipment for multiple PI’s. The director can also gage flexibility of the dates in case there
is overlap of equipment usage.]. These assessments will be done on the basis for the resources
already within the HMTF’s capacity or that could reasonably be developed to expand the
HTMF’s capacity. These assessments will be done independently of the assessments of scientific
merit that are completed by the mail-out and panel reviews conducted by the NSF Program
Manager. The feasibility and cost information provided by the HMTF Director will serve as
ancillary input to the pre-award evaluation process.
Once the NSF Program Manager acts on the recommendations [which may be
constrained by equipment availability] of the program Review Panel, notification of successful
awards will be sent simultaneously to the investigators and to the HMTF Director. The director
will then develop a firm project price for the project in consultation with the proposal author.
Ultimately the award will consist of two parts: one part that supports the direct and indirect costs
requested by the investigators and a second part that supports the HMTF to provide the technical
and logistic services required by the investigators [I think this is going to ruffle a few feathers…].
At this point the HMTF and the investigators will begin a planning dialogue. The HMTF
Director will be responsible for assembling a team from resources within the HMTF or contracted
by the HMTF to support the investigators technical needs.
For each funded project there will be a Technical Support Team (TST) developed by the
HMTF Director. The TST will work directly with the investigator’s team to plan, deploy,
execute, and analyze [analyze in the sense that you are looking for instrument errors or systematic
trends resulting from the sampling technology itself? Analyze is a bit vague here.] the field
research, as appropriate to the project. In some case it may only be necessary for the TST to
provide some instruction and advice. In other case, the TST may become an essential component
of the investigator’s team, working with them directly in the field [so this will need to be
budgeted in at inception?], and assisting with major components of the data analysis. In some
cases, the TST may fabricate custom-built equipment and facilities. In cases were TST members
are substantially involved in the intellectual development of the project, questions of
‘acknowledgement’ versus ‘co-authorship’ status should be discussed at the very beginning of the
investigator/TST relationship.
When a project has been completed, there will be a performance appraisal by the project
PI and by the HMTF steering committee which will help the HMTF adapt the future project
needs. In normal course of project management, the project investigators report to NSF on the
progress and ultimately the findings of the project. For projects in which HMTF assistance has
been utilized, the investigators will provide a special evaluation of the HMTF input. The NSF
Program Manager will use material from the project final report and from the Investigator
performance appraisal to provide a performance appraisal to the HMTF Director. This
information will be used to inform the first-cut feasibility and costing process for new projects
and to help direct the HMTF capacity building strategies.
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Staff Requirements of Task 2.1:
Director:
Review of proposals to assess feasibility: 10 days each 6 month cycle
Preparation of estimated budgets for proposed activities: 25 days/cycle
Preparation of final bids and TST for proposed activities: 50 days/cycle
LTHO [new acronym?] Staff: 25 days per year in support proposal evaluation and
cost-estimation
TST: Assigned and budgeted per project. It is expected that the director and the
technical director will contribute 20 and 50 days respectively to this
activity funded from the HMTF core budget. [I think there is a
tremendous opportunity here to hire student interns for direction by
permanent staff for busy periods. Many of these interns could come from
institutions getting research funded during cycle. This trains up new
scientists on these technologies.]
2.2 Support of Long Term Hydrologic Observatories (LTHOs)
CUAHSI and the NSF have expressed a commitment to establish long-term observation
of hydrologic processes at multiple scales at approximately five LTHOs. In XXXX?
CUAHSI will fund the parallel development of 10 candidate basin proposals, of which
one or two are expected to go to the NSF for competitive funding of an LTHO. Each
observatory will span approximately 10,000 square kilometers, with instrumentation
installed to monitor all the major fluxes across hydrologic interfaces (see
www.GODONLYKNOWS.CUAHSI.ORG With your religious convictions, are you
allowed to use this web address?). The establishment of these observatories will require
accurate and consistent site characterization, and installation of reliable calibrated
instrumentation at the highest density ever attempted […also multiple nested scales?].
Although each LTHO will be contracted to a collection of universities, the HMTF will
provide the expertise required to select robust and compatible instrumentation across the
LTHO system. It is expected that the LTHO-related activities will be more than half of
the work-load of the HMTF in the first 5 years of operation. Support will include
supervision of geophysical characterization, specification of installed equipment, periodic
calibrating and testing the instruments deployed at the LTHOs, technical evaluation and
testing of upgrades and new developments, and troubleshooting malfunctioning
instruments.
We fully expect that instrument development will be an important activity of the HTMF,
both to facilitate the success of the LTHO’s and to accelerate the progress of discovery in
the general hydrologic community. HMTF will improve the instruments development
capabilities as directed by the FAP’s assessment of demand for these services, which
would be built up incrementally through supplemental funding requests to the NSF.
The list of typical requirements for supporting LTHO activities [awkward and unclear],
shown below, demonstrates that these efforts will involve extensive use of state-of-the-art
tools and analysis techniques that go far beyond simple installation of off-the-shelf parts.
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1. Provide high resolution DEMs and canopy cover profiles (airborne
LIDAR provided by NCALM);
2. Install high-resolution precipitation monitoring system (ground-based
radar and disdrometer network);
3. Characterize and monitor stream network:
i. Hyporheic through tracer transport (one-time study)
ii. Temperature monitoring along reaches (continuous in time)
iii. Major ion monitoring (continuous in time)
iv. Stream bed temperature profiles (full year study)
v. Gaging of flow (permanent installation)
vi. Sediment monitoring (continuous monitoring)
4. Characterize and monitor aquifers
i. Depth to water and fluctuation in water level
ii. Permeability profile
Major ionic compositionBiogeochemistryGeological characterization:
geophysics.ET monitoring (e.g., micrometeorological tools, LIDAR,
scintilometer)
Vadose uptake (infiltration capacity) and fluctuation and spatial distribution of
vadose storage (e.g., TDR network, instruments for vadose hydrogeologic
characterization).
The HMTF will initially have one PhD level scientist hired to focus on support of the
LTHO effort who will complement the skills of the Director. This staffer will later be
complemented by additional staff as the LTHO process adds demand (and associated
budget) for these services. These staff will aggressively seek out all instruments that are
presently available for lease [within the scientific community, or are you talking about
commercial companies that rent equipment also?], and establish contracts for their use.
Those critical measurements which can not be accomplished in this manner will be
brought to the FAP [I would spell this out, because it has been a long time since
tangentially mentioned the FAP], and if deemed necessary, will be requested of the NSF
through supplemental funding requests.
Staff Requirements of Task 2.2:
Director: 30 days per year in coordination and technical consulting.
LTHO Staffer: 125 days per year (including travel) [so, you are assuming the
other PhD will do other support duties during the rest of the year?].
2.3.
Training and Outreach
The HMTF is needed to rectify present obstacles in hydrologic measurement. While
provision of hardware is critical, several non-material aspects are also critical to be
addressed. For instance, the community will not even start to take advantage of the
HMTF if it is unaware of the process by which the services can be obtained.
Furthermore, there is a lack of community standards for measurement, undermining the
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entire endeavor. To address these issues we propose a Training and Outreach program
for the community of scientists making hydrologic measurements.
Sub Tasks
To help fill these needs, three sub-tasks are proposed.
1. Hold a hydrologic science instrumentation workshop that also introduces the
HMTF capabilities and process of gaining access to the facilities;
2. Coordinate a program of short-courses to provide training in using hydrologic
measurements equipment; [maybe a good idea to contract these out to faculty who
have significant experience in the use of the type of equipment… Ah, I see you do
this below.]
3. Develop a web-based encyclopedic peer-reviewed compendium of hydrologic
science field techniques [It would be really nice if there was a software developed
that let you compare instruments by selecting desired fields. This however would
take a real web guru or someone with a lot of time to figure it out.].
Task 1. Hydrologic Science Instrumentation Workshop
As part of the initiation of the HMTF, a one-time workshop will be conducted [possibly
better to do a workshop after the annual meeting of several of the major organizations
(e.g., AGU, AWRA, ASCE, ASAE, etc.)? Maybe in 2005?]. The goals are: 1) to inform
the broader community of HMTF services and how the HMTF will interact with NSF
proposals and PIs – from the pre-proposal phase to project completion; 2) to provide a
venue for interaction between scientists developing instrumentation, vendors, and
equipment users, and it will provide the opportunity for hands-on demonstrations and
booth space for exhibitors. The workshop will be held in October of 2004 so that PI’s
might have an opportunity to prepare proposals with HMTF components for the
December NSF Hydrology panel. It is proposed that the workshop be held in New
Orleans so that it could include a visit to the USGS HIF.
Planning for the workshop will commence in earnest as soon as NSF notifies the
Committee that the proposal has been funded. The Committee will work together to plan
and run the workshop.
Sub-task 2.3.1 resources requirements:
Director: 3 weeks
Tech Staff: 3 weeks
Administrative assistant: 8 weeks
Advertising, site costs and travel: $30,000
Task 2. Hydrologic Instrumentation Training Sessions
Formal training opportunities will be organized where experts in particular technologies
will present the state of the art in measurement tools and techniques. The HMTF will
coordinate course site arrangements; cover costs to put on the courses, and coordinate
evaluation and quality improvement. A solicitation will be announced in August of 2004
requesting experts to prepare mini-proposals for short-course topics. Five topics will be
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selected to be presented in 2005 (distributed wireless systems; geophysics for
hydrologists; precipitation measurement; Measurement of Evapotranspiration; and Soil
Moisture measurement), each of which will be given a budget to cover preparation of
materials, instructor travel and expenses, and site costs. Courses may include existing
USGS field methods courses; hydrologic field camps (for instance a course on stream
tracer hydrology at the HJ Andrews experimental forest has been floated); or developing
training classes on particular technologies (e.g., wireless networked sensing). [Should
you budget in time to put these presentations online via a Mike Furniss or equivalent?]
Sub-task 2.3.2 major resources requirements:
Director: 3 weeks
Administrative assistant: 8 weeks
Advertising, site costs and travel: $10,000 per training: $50,000
Task 3. Encyclopedia of Hydrologic Science Field Techniques.
No central reference exists for standard methods or even advice on alternate approaches
for hydrologic science. Perhaps the most widely recognized and accessible resource, the
USGS’s Techniques of Water Resources Investigations database, provides some
information, but much of this is either dated or highly specialized. Similarly, standard
methods exist in some cases – e.g., through ASTM and APHA – however, these tend to
be highly discipline-specific. The HMTF will coordinate the development of an on-line,
full-text-searchable peer-reviewed comprehensive reference for hydrologic measurement
[also nice to have search engine to compare samplers].
The PI’s of this grant will work with the HMTF director to select an editor and fourperson associate editorial committee for the project. The associate editors will broadly
represent the following areas of hydrologic measurement: subsurface; surface water;
atmospheric; and water quality. The process will be run much like a peer-reviewed
journal. The editors will solicit contributions and the chief editor will assign submitted
work to the associate editors for full peer review. Each accepted article will be assigned
a publication identifier, and be a citable reference [standardized format?]. As methods
evolve, the previous versions of methods will be maintained in archive so that work
based on these methods can be reproduced. An additional section of the encyclopedia
will be an “Emerging Methods” category where contributors will be able to post ideas
and preliminary results. These contributions will be identified as exploratory, and will
only require authorization of the editor to be posted. Emerging methods will be
cataloged along with the peer-reviewed approaches, providing a venue for collaborative
development of new methods. The encyclopedia will be web-based with all methods
freely downloadable.
Sub-task 2.3.3 major resources requirements:
Director: 2 weeks/yr
Administrative assistant: 10 weeks/yr
Editor: $10,000/yr for 0.10 FTE compensation and $2,500/yr travel
Associate Editors: 4x $1,500/yr for annual editorial committee meetings.
Computing and internet support: $10,000/yr
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3. The Structure of the HMTF
3.1 Single Site Center of Operations
The HMTF instruments and staff will be housed at a single site to avoid redundancy in
tools stored in various smaller facilities, provides a critical mass of expertise and staffing
to solve complex measurement problems, and will provide a focus for the hydrologic
community for technology and related training.
3.2 Provision of Instruments
Instrument provision will be achieved in the most cost effective manner possible,
leveraging existing infrastructure using approaches that are novel and community
building.
3.2.1. Brokerage Services
a. Formal leasing services. HMTF will negotiate to open existing agency
instrument pools (such as the USGS Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility, AKA,
HIF) to the university research community. HMTF will resolve legal matters, set
up web portals or other facilities to allow rental agreements to be made, but
financial liability will be between the lessor and lessee.
b. Peer-to-peer leasing. HMTF will facilitate equipment sharing that would benefit
the owner by providing revenue and would benefit the lessee by gaining access to
equipment at lower cost than purchasing. HMTF will facilitate through minigrants to provide funds for packing crates and may indemnify lessee from
breakage (by developing a repair fund from equipment rentals, for example).
Accepting such financial liabilities may be critical to successful operation of such
a service. Legal and logistical aspects will be the responsibility of the HMTF
director.
c. Hydrologic Science Marketplace. HMTF will develop a web site for posting of
services and equipments offered by both commercial vendors and by individuals.
This would provide a marketing strategy for individuals offering analytical
services, for example, that currently have no easy way to make their presence
known to potential clients. This service should certainly be free to member
universities, probably should be free to any university or non-profit, and may
initially be free to for-profit commercial vendors. We may be able to charge
commercial vendors an advertising fee if this experiment is successful.
d. “Science Pairing.” Coordinated with the emerging techniques component of the
encyclopedia, the HMTF will develop a matching service to link those who are
developing instrumentation and/or field techniques with those who need such
instrumentation and techniques. We envision a web-based bulletin board
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framework where interested groups maintain FAQ’s and respond to inquiries. A
prime example of the need for this is in shallow geophysics, which has not made
the in-roads into hydrology that it might have because of lack of information
sharing between the geophysics and geohydrology communities.
3.2.2. Major Instrumentation and Field Support.
This service has been the primary motivation behind the HMTF since the inception of the
concept. The decision on which capabilities will be adopted as HMTF-operated
instruments will be the peer review process as proposals are evaluated and funded in the
NSF, with additional pro-active recommendations for investments coming from the
Facilities Advisory Panel (FAP). In this proposal we request no funds to purchase
equipment [computers, servers, office equipment, cell phones for field techs?]. These
instruments will come to the HMTF through two processes: 1) NSF funded proposals that
require the HMTF to purchase equipment; and 2) HMTF proposals directed to the NSF
which arise from FAP identified resources that have been determined to be needed by the
community. This pool of instruments will grow naturally over the operations of the
facility. These instruments will be provided to scientists through the usual NSF panel
process, and, on an as-available basis, through mini-proposals directly to the HMTF.
3.4
Staff support
Ultimately we believe that each major focus area (e.g., surface, subsurface and landatmosphere) will require technical support to direct instrument development and quality
assurance, hardware and software engineering support, for maintenance and
development. A visiting scientist program is envisioned which will provide for bidirectional communication with the larger community. These human resources will be
critical to the long-term success of the HMTF providing specialized skills for shortduration campaigns. This initial proposal is directed to establishment of a bare-bones
staff, with the expectation that this staff will grow in time through supplemental
proposals to the NSF as directed by the FAP based on documented user demand. In this
context, the HMTF staff will consist of: 1) the director (PhD-level); 2) the LTHO support
coordinator (PhD-level); and 3) an administrative assistant with web experience (B.S.level [dangerous to try and combine these skills… It is the rare person that will do a good
job on both. I think you likely need a full time web guru and a separate administration
person for the first year (preferably with accounting and purchasing
experience…accounting makes them anal and purchasing ensures they know how to
acquire things efficiently and fast). There are a tremendous number of details to work
out.]).
3.4
Offices, laboratory and development facilities
The HMTF must have the ability to modify, test, and calibrate the complete range of
hydrologic tools. Oregon State University has committed to provision of most of the
space in a free-standing campus building for these purposes. This building currently
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houses a precision machine shop as well as offices, and a large wet-dry laboratory. The
machine facility includes a full complement of machine tools, welding equipment, and a
high bay for assembly and receiving. In the same building there is a video-conferencing
room (Polycom 9000i), and 800 square feet of office space for staff, and 1,500 square
feet of wet lab/electronics lab space. An equipment storage space is located in the same
building.
3.5 Data handling – information systems
HMTF will develop an archive of all the data collected through the use of HMTF
platforms or data-collection systems using standards and protocols developed jointly with
the currently funded CUAHSI Hydrologic Information Systems program[It would help if
you gave a short explanation here for the uninitiated]. [What do you do when a PI
collects the data? Will there be an approved format of data that will be required upon
approval of the grant?]
3.6 Staff, Postdoctoral, and Visiting Scientist Structure
Ultimately, the HMTF will provide a venue for Postdoctoral/Visiting Scientists to allow
for brief visits and sabbatical assistance to help in the development specific instrument
packages and associated software support (e.g. inverse methods). These “visitors” fulfill
three critical functions. First, they bring current needs to the facility, presenting the staff
with cutting edge issues for instrumentation and measurement systems. Second, they
bring new ideas and techniques being developed in universities to a fully equipped
technical staff prepared to transform these ideas into tools. Finally, these visitors will
take home the seeds of new ideas and tools from which the techniques developed at the
HMTF will take root in the larger scientific community. This program will be added to
the HMTF through request for supplemental funds when the FAP deems the facility had
matured to the point where visiting scientist could be integrated into the HMTF mission.
4. Continuous Improvement
Jennifer – keep or ditch as you see fit!?
4.1 Quality Assurance
The objective of the HMTF data quality assurance program is to ensure that each data
point collected is completely defined, including the uncertainty, following the motto “If it
is not documented it didn’t happen.” All instruments provided by the HMTF will be
calibrated to traceable standards and have well defined precision and accuracy. As part
of its technology development program, and directed by the user community, the HMTF
will continually strive to improve the performance of existing instruments as well as
develop instruments with higher standards. In conjunction with Hydrology Information
Systems the HMTF will establish standardized data formats, and standards for data
reporting that will ensure that the data is properly documented and that all data is readily
accessible including calibration data [if you ditch this, it needs to be mentioned above
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where I question it.]. Finally the HMTF will provide training and field support to the
users in order to ensure that all systems are properly installed and operated.
4.2 The Life of a Project
To obtain the best results possible the HMTF will expect to be involved through the
entire life of each project it contributes to. The process will begin with the PI submitting
a science objectives proposal for peer review. Science objectives proposal that are
approved will then go into the design phase. The HMTF staff conjunction with the PI
will evaluate what suite of instruments is appropriate and available to meet the science
objectives, and to generate a detailed project proposal which will include a schedule,
types and numbers of instrument, documentation requirements and staffing. The HMTF
will work from the test plan to assemble, calibrate and test the necessary equipment. The
HMTF will work with the PI to provide necessary training and support for the installation
and operation of the project. Data collected from the project will be assembled by the PI
and submitted to the HMTF for quality checking before being submitted to the HIS for
archiving and distribution.
4.3 Performance Assessment
The HMTF will continually strive to improve its performance. This goal will be
achieved through objective evaluation of that performance from both inside and outside
the facility. The ultimate measure of the success of the HMTF will be the evaluation of
the users and the general hydrology community. Users will be asked to submit two levels
of evaluation. The first level will be simple recommendations to be used by the HMTF to
improve its performance. The second level will be a scored evaluation of all aspects of
the HMTF performance and will be submitted directly to the FAP. The FAP will also
solicit comments from the general hydrology community before each of its meetings.
Some quantitative measures that might also be included are, per cent of data return,
volume of quality-checked data archived, the time required to put an experiment in the
field, and the in house turn around time of instruments. The evaluation process must be
flexible enough so that it can evolve to provide the information necessary for the HMTF
to improve.
5. Budget
So, are the CUAHSI employees federal employees? If the program will move around,
who handles the over-arching guiding principles? Is CUAHSI a self-governing nonprofit that answers only to an appointed board? Will NSF continue to fund the HMTF to
some level, or will all costs need to eventually be rolled into “rental” costs? It is difficult
to see how this will work in perpetuity.
6. Implementation Plan
6.1 Start Up
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The start up phase of the HMTF is critical, and has been considered with care to assure an
efficient, feasible, and effective organization at all stages of development. Hiring the
director will be the first task of the PI’s of this grant, in collaboration with the leadership
of CUAHSI. The director will then immediately proceed to hire the LTHO staffer and
administrative assistant.
6.2 Governance
The HMTF will be governed based on the principles of open peer-reviewed access to
resources. To achieve this end the HMTF will, in addition to an accountable internal
management structure, an external advisory committee that controls access to HMTF
resources for all major material commitments. Below is discussed the structure of the
HMTF governance as well as the processes of proposal submission and evaluation
Day to day operations of the HMTF will be under the control of the HMTF Director.
Specific facility use requests will be considered twice a year by the five-member
Facilities Advisory Panel (FAP). The FAP will be responsible for annual external review
of the HMTF operations, and will determine the need for supplemental funds and
capabilities of the HMTF as it develops. The 3-year terms panel members of the FAP
will be composed of scientists with broad-based experience in observational studies of
hydrologic sciences, covering areas of groundwater, surface water, atmospheric
processes, and biogeochemistry. FAP members are nominated by the CUAHSI
membership and selected by the CUAHSI board of directors.
I think that perhaps you are overly-optimistic with the staff hiring. You need at least two
techs hired on at the beginning who are intent on nothing but learning equipment.
Otherwise, you will be behind before you get started.
Perhaps they should also get factory training in instrumentation. I was certified by the
manufacturer to repair photo-copiers while in the Navy. These schools are about a week
long, and not only can you operate, but you can repair and/or jury-rig equipment to work
for awhile, while waiting on a permanent fix. At all times, I would recommend two
staffers that are “certified” (whatever that means) to operate each type of equipment
(especially calibration and packing for safe shipment).
…just some thoughts.
Administrative
Assistant
Administrative
Assistant
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Administrative
Assistant
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Technical
Support (2cnd)