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US EPA and integrated modelling

The US EPA has recently published a forward looking white paper on the role of integrated modelling in the Agency's work - Integrated Modeling for Integrated Environmental Decision Making White Paper. The approach advocated is open and outward looking with the development of an international community of practice forming an important part of the strategy. It recognises that to achieve acceptance, the value and cost effectiveness of integrated modelling has to be demonstrated. The help of research institutes and universities will be needed on two counts: first to solve the many scientific issues that will emerge as integrated modelling becomes widely applied, second to build a new body of skilled integrated modellers. A community of practice is needed because no single organisation has the resources, intellectual or financial, to meet all the challenges ahead. However, if the full power of the open source model can be harnessed, then there is a good chance that the rate of innovation can be driven up to the benefit of the whole modelling community.

From the 10th - 12th of December 2008, the Council for Environmental Regulatory Modelling convened a workshop for EPA staff and the agencies and industries with whom they work with. Its purpose was to establish support for integrated modelling and build a community of practice. An additional EPA objective was to establish a collaboration with the OpenMI Association.

The keynote speaker was Phillip Dibnerof the Open Geospatial Consortium. In extremely practical terms, he explained how the OGC raised the funds and resources that enabled it to do its work. He has also dealt with difficult issues, for example, achieving consensus on the direction of standards such as the OGC. To inform the meeting on the task ahead, a really lively bunch of external speakers was assembled. All were involved in developing enabling technologies for integrated modelling and building international communities to apply them to complex problems.  Roger Moore of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and Chairman of the OpenMI Association talked on why openness and collaboration are essential for integrated modelling and are the key to the future of the OpenMI. Dan Ames of Idaho State University gave an entertaining account of waking up to discover that scattered around the world were 140,000 copies of his Map Windows software. However, the really exciting moment for him came when he realised that his users were beginning to sort each others problems out. Larry Murdoch of Clemson University outlined the plans for the CUAHSI Community Hydrologic Modelling Platform (CHyMP), the US counterpart of Wallingford Software's Openweb. Ken Rojas of the USDA and the new chairman of the Interagency Multi-Media Modelling Group explained how the nine agency MOU for environmental modelling was being reinvigorated. Last but by no means least, Christopher Sherwood of the USGS and the Community Sediment-Transport Modelling System described their experiences with an open-source approach for developing coupled models for waves, currents and sediment transport in coastal and estuarine environments.

A lively and thoughtful discussion followed, which considered different aspects of the need for a community of practice, its scope, objectives and how it might be organised. The discussions didn't always flow easily. It took some time for people to adjust to the idea of an international, open community as opposed to an EPA or US community. There was also concern that the new organisation should not replicate the Interagency Multi-Media Modelling Group or the international Environmental Modelling System society (iEMSs). However, these problems look solvable and the outcome was an agreement to form a 'Community for Integrated Environmental Modelling' (a working title until someone thinks of something better) - to join, contact Dan Ames.

One of the EPA's tasks in taking its integrated modelling forward is to upgrade its FRAMES system. The current version has reached the end of its life-cycle. While it comprises 80 models and a powerful set of tools, its major limitation is that process interaction can only be represented by running models sequentially, with data exchange being affected by file transfer. To explore how this situation can be improved, the EPA has been evaluating OpenMI. The outcome of the meeting is that the EPA will prototype a new design for FRAMES 3, where file transfer is replaced or supplemented by the OpenMI allowing data exchange on a time step by time step basis.

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