History of the WATERS Network

Over the last decade the environmental science research community, with the support of NSF, has been developing the vision for a number of environmental observing systems including the EarthScope, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and the Oceans Observatory Initiative (OOI). In its 2001 report, "Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences," the National Research Council (NRC) identified eight grand environmental challenges facing the nation: biogeochemical cycles, biological diversity and ecosystem functioning, climate variability, hydrologic forecasting, infectious disease and the environment, institutions and resource use, land-use dynamics, and reinventing the use of materials.

The U.S. environmental engineering research community responded to this call by beginning discussions on the need for a nationwide environmental observatory and research initiative focused on human-induced impacts on the environment. Similar discussions were also taking place in the hydrologic science research community on the need for a hydrological observatory initiative focused on natural processes.

The WATERS Network is actually a combination of two national environmental observatory planning initiatives: CLEANER (Collaborative Large-Scale Engineering Analysis Network for Environmental Research), which has been supported by NSF's Engineering Directorate and especially its Environmental Engineering Program, and the CUAHSI (Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, www.cuahsi.org) initiative for Hydrologic Observatories, which has been supported by NSF's Geosciences Directorate and its Hydrologic Sciences Program.

In July 2005 the CLEANER Project Office began assembling reports from seven standing committees on cyberinfrastructure, education and outreach, environmental engineering and science, organization, sensor networks, modeling, and social science which were tasked with developing a preliminary program plan for the network. Members from both research communities then formed a joint WATERS Network Design Team that began work during the summer of 2006 to integrate these reports with similar planning documents from CUAHSI and develop the overall conceptual design for the observatory network. Membership in all of these teams covers a broad range of academic disciplines, including environmental engineering and science, social science, education, and information and sensor technology. In January 2007, the CLEANER Project Office officially became the WATERS Network Project Office to reflect this joint collaboration.