About CLEANER and the WATERS Network

CLEANER is the acronym for Collaborative Large-scale Engineering Analysis Network for Environmental Research.

Background
As population levels and the rate of urban development rise in the U.S. and elsewhere, industrialized societies around the world grow increasingly concerned with balancing the need to maintain water supplies of adequate quantity and quality for human use while preserving the integrity of aquatic ecosystems. Multiple stressors often threaten a single region. Confined feedlots, crop fertilization and over fishing, for example, all affect the Chesapeake Bay and each of these stressors operate on different temporal and spatial scales. Mitigating one problem requires understanding of how it relates to the others. Furthermore, each of these problems is tied to people's livelihoods. Researchers must consider social and economic impacts, not just environmental science, to enable the understanding needed to find the best solutions to environmental problems.

CLEANER aims to fundamentally transform and radically advance the scientific and engineering knowledge base for addressing the challenges of large-scale human-stressed aquatic systems through collaborative modeling and knowledge networks.

The vision for CLEANER is being developed by a large community with the support of the Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Environmental engineering needs to expand its toolbox beyond the laboratory or single, small field sites in order to solve modern and more complex environmental problems. Identifying solutions requires collection and integration of massive amounts of data and the input of sociologists, educators, industry, policy makers, and the general public. Modern problems require modern approaches and technology to solve them.

As early as 2001, scientists and engineers began to discuss the need for an observation and research network in order to enable them to better understand human-dominated environmental systems, their stressors, and the links between them. The idea of CLEANER evolved over the next four years as the Environmental Engineering Program at NSF sponsored workshops and a national symposium to gather community input. In July 2005, NSF awarded $2 million to a coalition of 12 institutions to establish the CLEANER Project Office.

Over the next two years the office, in coordination with the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences, Inc. (CUAHSI) is developing a preliminary program plan to seek Major Research and Equipment Facilities Construction (MREFC) funding in 2011 for a dual-purpose network called the WATer and Environmental Research Systems (WATERS) Network. WATERS will serve the research and education infrastructure needs of both the CUAHSI and CLEANER communities.

It is envisioned that the WATERS Network will:

• Transform environmental research by providing advanced sensor systems for data collection, advanced informatics tools for data mining, aggregation, analysis, and visualization and predictive modeling of large-scale dynamic environmental management strategies in real time;
• Enable more effective adaptive management approaches for human-stressed complex environmental systems based on enhanced observations, experimentation, modeling, engineering analysis, and design;
• Promote participation and improve interaction among the broad engineering and science community, including social scientists; and
• Transform engineering education by engaging the academic community collaboratively in large-scale and complex real-world problems.

CLEANER Project Office
An integral component of the planning for the WATERS Network was the establishment of a Project Office to coordinate and assist with activities leading to the establishment of the joint observatory network. The Project Office manages activities necessary for the establishment of the WATERS Network, including:

• Refining the key grand challenges for environmental engineering that the WATERS Network will address,
• Working with CUAHSI to develop a unified vision for the facilities and infrastructure needed to address compelling environmental challenges for the environmental engineering and hydrology communities, and
• Exploring potential partnerships and common interests with government agencies.