CLEANER (Collaborative Large-scale Engineering Analysis Network for Environmental Research) was established in July 2005 and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a collaborative large-scale engineering analysis network to enable scientists to better understand human-stressed environmental systems by fundamentally transforming the field of environmental engineering.

CUAHSI and CLEANERS recently joined forces to create the WATer and Environmental Research Systems Network (WATERS Network). The WATERS Network proposes to take advantage of recent advances in information technology and environmental sensors technology to construct an environmental observing system that will enable community-based, multi-scale water science research. Remote and embedded sensing technologies and supporting cyberinfrastructure will be used to construct a network of experimental and field facilities and information synthesis/modelling facilities (hydrologic watershed observatories) to detect, analyze, model, and forecast environmental change in our water resources. These watershed observatories will be an integrated, real-time, distributed system that seeks to address deficiencies in our current scientific understanding of the dynamics and spatial variability of water processes by developing a collaborative scientific exploration and engineering analysis network using NSF Major Research and Facility Construction funding. The UI contact for WATERS Network is Dr. Jerald Schnoor.

Current IIHR WATERS Test Bed Project: Clear Creek Observatory

In 2006, IIHR was awarded one of eleven important CUAHSI NSF grants for a WATERS Test Bed project to test various aspects of watershed observatory design and operation. The University of Iowa research group is currently developing the Clear Creek Environmental Hydrologic Observatory, utilizing cyberinfrastructure to integrate equipment, models, and knowledge within a common platform in order to analyze and predict in near-real time the fate and transport of sediment and nutrients at the hill-slope scale level. The Clear Creek Observatory will also demonstrate how information and communication technologies (wireless sensors, motes, the internet and the web, cellular modems, relational databases, etc.) may be integrated with existing scientific instruments and models in an end-to-end system that furthers scientific investigation in the geo- and environmental sciences.  An  interactive website for the Clear Creek Observatory is currently under design. Other UI groups participating in the Clear Creek Observatory include the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (with 16 Departments, 5 Colleges, and 65 faculty involved including The University of Iowa, Iowa State University, University of Northern Iowa, and Cornell) and CyberEnviroNet (a multi-disciplinary faculty and research group promoting cyberinfrastructure-based research and education).