NCSA hosting workshop to launch water supply monitoring project

released June 09, 2005

A workshop will be held June 27-28 at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) to launch a program dedicated to developing and deploying information technologies to improve water supply monitoring.

The Midwest Technology Assistance Center for Small Public Water Systems (MTAC) is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ensure efficient response to the highest priority needs of small public water systems and Indian Tribal systems in the Midwest. Toward that goal, MTAC is launching a project called "Improved Monitoring for Safe and Secure Water Supplies: An Integrated Approach to Emerging Information Technologies." The project will be developed through the workshop, which will include presentations from Andrew Richardson, president of the American Water Works Association, NCSA technology experts, Zia Bukhair of American Water, and Barbara Minsker, a University of Illinois professor of civil and environmental engineering and an NCSA research scientist.

There is great interest by the federal government, industry, and local governments in using emerging information technologies for developing more effective and efficient approaches to testing, monitoring, and reporting on the health of small water supply systems. The objective of this project is to identify the steps needed to improve collaboration and information integration among small water supply systems so they can effectively employ emerging sensors and information technologies.

The workshop participants will develop a report that outlines recommendations for priority future action steps to ensure that future federal initiatives that develop sensors and cyberinfrastructure will benefit the security and management of small water systems. A prototype "cybercollaboratory" has been developed to assist with the planning process and demonstrate emerging information technologies. A cybercollaboratory is a Web-based system that includes communication, analysis, and knowledge-sharing tools and that supports online collaboration among members of a community.

Interested NCSA staff are invited to attend the workshop, which will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 27 and 8 to 11:30 a.m. on June 28 in Room 5269 at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

For more information on the workshop, including a full agenda, go to http://watersecurity.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cybercollab/.

 

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