In January 2003, the NSF Advisory Committee on 

Environmental Research and Education (AC-ERE) 

published the report, Complex Environmental Systems: Synthesis for Earth, Life, and Society in the 

21st Century (CES). This report identified cyberinfrastructure as a suite of critical enabling tools 

and research essential to the study of complex 

environmental systems. Cyberinfrastructure (CI) 

provides tools for storing, finding, analyzing, and 

synthesizing a diverse array of data. Through modeling frameworks, development tools, and hardware, 

CI supports integrated models of multi-component 

systems. In addition, CI supports the synthesis of observational data and models, provides mechanisms 

for collaboration, and offers new opportunities for 

formal and informal education in environmental 

science and engineering. Crucial to the effective 

use of CI are trained personnel and interdisciplinary education. Optimizing the contribution of CI to 

environmental science and engineering in general 

and to research on complex environmental systems 

in particular requires making choices and setting 

priorities. With this Occasional Paper, the AC-ERE 

attempts to describe some of the issues and provide 

more focused advice on environmental cyberinfrastructure (ECI) to NSF.

Growing Need for CI Tools

Hardware and software cybertools have been used 

in environmental science and engineering for decades. An early example is the computer simulation 

of atmospheric circulation. A more recent example 

is the numerical simulation of detailed models of 

the global climate system, which remains limited by 

available computer resources. 

Environmental CyberInfrastructure (ECI)

Tools for the Study of Complex Environmental Systems

Over the years, NSF has responded to the need for 

cybertools in many ways and at many levels—mainly 

driven by basic scientific research. Support has been 

provided using a variety of programmatic and funding mechanisms. Major activities include generalpurpose supercomputer centers, disciplinary computational science centers, developmental research 

on the middleware and hardware for computational 

grids, data grids, and networking. 

Other research has furthered the development of 

collaboratory software, visualization tools, datamining and data management techniques, and the 

CI components of sensor networks, including environmental observing and analysis systems. Individual investigators and small research groups have 

benefited from funding for collaborations involving 

environmental and computational scientists and 

support for mid-size computational infrastructure. 

Accomplishments from these investments have been 

impressive and the current level of NSF investment 

in these areas is substantial. Nevertheless, recent 

community assessments have underscored the need 

for further investment in these and other revolutionary technologies.

Now that some of these cybertools are maturing, the 

demand for their functionality is growing and there 

is a need for resources to support more widespread 

use of these systems as research tools. To address this 

need, NSF has begun to direct attention to integrating research on and deployment of cybertools across 

the Foundation. The AC-ERE explicitly supports 

this emerging focus on domain needs and expresses 

here some of the particular drivers in environmental 

research and education (ERE).

An Occasional Paper of the NSF Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education

AC-ERE 1, May 2003

Suggested Citation: Futrell, J. and the AC-ERE, Environmental Cyberinfrastructure (ECI): Tools for the Study of Complex Environmental 

Systems, AC-ERE 1, May 2003.
ECI Workshop Describes Trends

In October 2002, participants at an ECI Workshop 

in Boulder, Colorado (www.ncar.ucar.edu/cyber) 

identified trends that result in a need for substantially enhanced ECI. Participants drew on their own 

experience as well as on the CI literature. Among the 

trends cited was growth in multidisciplinary research 

on complex, multi-component natural systems. 

Others include:

• Huge growth in volume of data collected

• Deployment of distributed, intelligent observational and sensor networks

• Rapid expansion in the capability of computer 

hardware

• Development of software for knowledge representation, discovery, and manipulation

• Development of tools for electronic publication, 

digital libraries, and virtual collaboration

• Growth of numerical models as tools for investigating processes

• Availability of more sophisticated mathematical 

and statistical tools, and

• Growing ability to blend models and data.

Taken together, the confluence of these trends represent a rapid evolution in the role of cyberinfrastructure in science and engineering research. 

Workshop Recommendations to NSF

ECI Workshop participants identified specific priorities that need to be addressed:

• Data issues, including interoperability of databases, long-term archiving and curation of environmental data, and further development of tools 

for visualization, analysis, and mining of data 

• Training of people in domain science and engineering cyberinfrastructure methods and in collaboration across fields

• Software engineering support

• Network access, including increased capacity and 

access to data and models

• Need for additional compute cycles in both midsize computational infrastructure and enhanced 

high-end computing

• Extensive deployment of collaboratory tools

• Ability to exploit ECI tools in education.

The Workshop recommended that NSF address 

these needs by establishing a crosscutting program 

to support the development and deployment of ECI 

for research and education. This approach would 

help foster collaborative approaches to cyberinfrastructure development, and enhance cooperation 

between general-purpose NSF supercomputing 

centers and domain-specific IT centers in environmental science and engineering.

The Workshop supported establishment of a formal 

collaborative activity to foster interoperability between data systems and models, and to ensure access 

to data, results, model components, methods, and 

best practices about implementation and management. Additional recommendations were to conduct 

workshops on educational and research aspects of 

ECI, to expand the AccessGrid1, or similar technology, to encompass multiple nodes at all major universities with environmental programs, and to ensure 

that NSF-supported ECI activities are coordinated 

with other federal agencies.

AC-ERE Advice to NSF on ECI Activities

The AC-ERE has reviewed the ECI Workshop proceedings and was briefed by experts from the ECI 

community in October 2002 (see www.nsf.gov/geo/

ere/ereweb/minutes.cfm). These experts described 

similar needs and supported similar actions. The 

AC-ERE concurs with the recommendations described above.

1

A network of computer and multimedia resources to support group-to-group interactions, such as large-scale, distributed meetings.
As NSF undertakes implementation of Workshop 

recommendations, the AC-ERE suggests that the following features be incorporated:

• A high degree of community participation in 

planning, developing, and improving ECI using means such as the AC-ERE task group on 

Environmental Infrastructure, workshops, and 

national meetings

• A stable yet flexible ECI design that will rapidly 

accommodate technological changes

• Inclusion of support for both innovative research 

and basic infrastructure enhancement

• A plan maximizing access for the research community, resource managers, educators, and the 

general public

• Increased interoperability of data management 

systems, data analysis tools, and models

• Integrated and transparent archiving of digital 

data ensuring its retrievability

• Opportunities for collaborative research that involves all disciplines, including computer science 

and mathematics

• Best practices in cyber-security

• Intellectual property policy that ensures full access to data, tools, and models

• Open systems and the free and open exchange of 

data, software and results.

The AC-ERE looks forward to being a full partner in 

addressing the critical needs for ECI in the future. 

AC-ERE Comments on Implementation

The following five areas are critical in the early 

implementation of an ECI strategy. 

Data Management. Environmental researchers are 

often constrained by the limited capacity available 

to integrate and analyze many kinds of data, which 

often span a wide range of space and/or time scales, 

and to synthesize a high volume of data in near realtime.

The ERE community needs to move toward a single 

logical confederation of data systems. There are a 

number of ways to accomplish this goal, all of which 

would be enhanced by partnerships with other agencies and steering committees that include members 

of the academic community, resource managers, and 

non-academic users.

The NSF should develop an appropriate framework, 

such as an environmental data systems confederation, to (a) track research on data management techniques in the academic and commercial arenas, (b) 

study the lessons learned and technology developed 

in ERE data system efforts, (c) develop and publish 

“best practices” methods that improve interoperability of ERE data systems and integration with 

the larger data universe, and (d) assist data systems 

that adopt these practices. A complementary activity might provide support to ERE data management 

projects for software engineers who would be the 

“glue” between such projects.

Another suggestion is to consider support for broad, 

long-term data management activities. These structures should provide archiving services for data 

systems established by individuals, small groups 

of investigators, or finite lifetime research projects. 

They might also be appropriate test beds for new 

data and knowledge analysis software. Development 

of an inter-agency permanent digital data-archiving 

capability should be pursued.

IT Resources. Many systems required for ECI are 

too costly to be supported by individual grants, but 

fall short of the size of supercomputer centers. This 

problem might be addressed by a specific program 

for computational infrastructure. Some examples of 

needs that fall in this category are mid-size computational hardware and operations personnel, departmental networking upgrades, and visualization and 

collaboration hardware.
www.nsf.gov/ere

In addition, there should be a small number of environmental synthesis centers for ERE that would 

include high-end computing capabilities. Researchers at the centers would collaborate with the external 

ERE community. The centers could offer synthesis 

and research workshops, a long-term visitor program, a postdoctoral program, and maintain substantial high-end computing resources for use by 

both external and internal researchers. 

Computational Environmental Research. It is desirable to foster partnerships among environmental 

computational science specialists, the computer science community, and the NSF Directorate of Computer Information Science and Engineering (CISE). 

One possible mechanism is to establish a long-term 

interdisciplinary program to fund collaborative research in computational environmental research to 

encourage collaborations between the environmental and computer science communities.

Another computational issue is to support researchenabling software infrastructure projects, such as 

development of common modeling frameworks and 

models that can be used by a broad community.

Collaborative Environmental Research. Deploying new tools that facilitate collaboration among 

scientists and engineers working in environmental 

areas is also essential to the advancement of environmental research. This will require increased support 

for collaboratory software and hardware, as well as 

for community workshops and other activities that 

encourage collaborative approaches to investigation 

of environmental research frontiers.

Education and Training. Enhancement of ECI ultimately depends on the development of a capable 

workforce. Programs for interdisciplinary graduate 

training that integrate computer science with environmental science and engineering are a particularly 

attractive option for developing expertise in a relatively short timeframe. Another approach is to emphasize projects that use advanced IT tools in formal 

and informal environmental research and education. 

As one example, digital library activities in ERE have 

already begun to prove valuable and should continue 

to be expanded. Inclusion of education and outreach 

components in large ECI activities is strongly encouraged. 

Summary

Increased ECI capacity is essential to achieve the 

goals of environmental synthesis: asking integrated 

interdisciplinary research questions; creating diverse 

teams; assessing complex systems across spatial 

and temporal scales; and providing broad access 

to knowledge and know how. NSF should take the 

lead in providing researchers across the full range of 

disciplines—social, biological, and physical sciences 

and engineering—with the critical cybertools they 

need to advance environmental research and education in the 21st Century.