water and environmental hub - u of l

Water and Environmental Hubsince 26.04.2010

Alex JosephExecutive Director

University of LethbridgeSeptember 2, 2010

Problem or Opportunity?

32000 YRS5000 YRS20 YRS19942008

STORE

MOVE

AMASS

DISTRIBUTE

PRODUCE

32000 YRS5000 YRS20 YRS199420082010

If there’s all this data out there...

Why do I and my students spend 50-75% of time trying to find it?

|

The Problem Until Now

• Data is exploding

• Data sets are large

• Data has been hard to move around

• Data is precious

• Ironically data is our first and last thought...

"Access to and sharing of water and land use information and knowledge remains one of the

most significant challenges to the development of responsible management policies and plans"

- University of Lethbridge President and Vice-chancellor Dr. Bill Cade

UNGEMS

AB Env

IP3/WC2N

Google Apps

Vision

To become the open source, web platform that connects water and environmental data with the tools and people needed to advance water research, integrated management, innovation,

and economic diversification.

We will try to do to

water data and information

What Google has done to text, images, video...

volume – accessibility – mashups - customization

if <this>

data explosion

web 2.0 + open data

high speed networks

cloud computing

</this> IS TRUE for WATER

then {benefit} =

> data open and accessible online

< time and $ spent in acquisition

> eresearch, innovation, economic diversification

UNGEMS GINIP3/WC2N ...

Apps

WEHUB

Mediators

Data

Approach

• Distributed: data stays with owners

• Scalable: exists in the cloud

• Seamless: acts as one virtual database

• Multi-access: multiple portals, tools

• Standards-based: use nat’l & int’l standardse.g. Groundwater ML (GWML)

WaterML

GeoSciML

Users

Industry

Government

AcademiaNGOs

General Public

Integrated Management

AgricultureEnergy Integrated Policy

EnvironmentEconomic

eResearch

RepositoryFlood/Drought

WPACs

EnvironmentEconomic

Apps

Civic Innovation

Citizen Science

Who

• Q2 2010Scanning

• Q3 2010Development

• Q3 2011 Public Launch

• Q3 2011Feedback & Refinement

INITIAL FUNDING

Alex Joseph

Executive Director - Water and Environmental Hub

Cybera Inc.

Direct: (403) 826-3915

Email: alex.joseph@cybera.ca

http://www.cybera.ca/project/water-and-environmental-hub