CalSWIM
Professor of informatics Crista Lopes and professor of chemical engineering Stanley Grant are developing a web-based watershed information and management tool called the California Sustainable Wetland Information Manager, CalSWIM.
CalSWIM is an academic-government initiative to develop an intelligent database for accessing and interacting with environmental monitoring data. An interdisciplinary team of researchers conduct field work and modeling studies collectively aimed at creating and implementing this web-based expert system and integrated information manager.
CalSWIM is designed both as a public forum for exploring local watersheds and as a web location to help coastal managers make cost-effective and scientifically justifiable decisions regarding the monitoring, management, and alteration of coastal urban wetlands and their associated watersheds.
CalSWIM is an ongoing project with the visionary goal of developing a protocol and method that can be applied to all watersheds in California, facilitating coordinated, integrated, and informed management decisions for those in the water resources profession.
Lopes is the IT technical leader of CalSWIM, with which she is conducting advanced research pertaining to software development. With CalSWIM she is developing a novel wiki-based web development method that enables environmental experts, who are not software experts, to actively edit and program CalSWIM. This method will be crucial in scaling up CalSWIM to its visionary goal.
The development and implementation of CalSWIM is carried out in close consultation with government and private sector personnel directly responsible for the management and restoration of coastal urban wetlands, and is built on monitoring and modeling efforts carried out by the Orange County Health Care Agency, Coast Keepers, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project.
Learn more: http://calswim.org
