NG-CHC Northern Gulf Coastal Hazards Collaboratory Simulation Experiment Integration (2013 NGCHC Annual Science Meeting)

Sharing data and information across platforms and disciplines is essential to the research process and key to scientific discovery and understanding. Within the coastal community there is a need to share data and information for accelerating the research process. The Northern Gulf Coastal Hazards Collaboratory (NG-CHC), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), is filling that need by building cyberinfrastructure to catalyze collaborative research and education and to reduce risk to coastal vulnerabilities. Researchers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are working to advance the science and engineering of coastal hazards across the region and address problems of major national importance, including engineering design, coastal system response, and risk management of coastal hazards. The research team is developing an integrated large-scale ‘catchment to the coast’ collaborative modeling system using cyberinfrastructure to integrate data from observation and sensor systems with computer models across the Northern Gulf Coast. Within this effort, the Information Technology and Systems Center (ITSC) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is leading the development of a collaborative environment for the coastal hazards research community to provide needed capabilities for simulating coastal hazards in a multidisciplinary environment.