Weidman Center Professorship: Global Agility
Dr. Jim Nelson
Dr. Jim Nelson was awarded the Weidman Center Professorship in Global Agility. Dr. Nelson is a professor of civil and environmental engineering within the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology at BYU.
Dr. Nelson’s research at BYU is focused on watershed modeling using available digital resources to develop simulation models for flood control and other water resources management problems. His work, which grew out of the Environmental Modeling Research Lab (EMRL) at BYU is now a licensed commercial product called the Watershed Modeling System or WMS. It is licensed by BYU to Aquaveo LLC and has been used in more than 100 countries and thousands of organizations worldwide. Dr. Nelson's research has opened up many opportunities to collaborate internationally and has resulted in more than 200 students going abroad to help developing countries with water challenges.
With the funding given by the professorship, Dr. Nelson chose to connect a joint mentoring effort with Dr. Dan Ames called the BYU World Water Project (http://worldwater.byu.edu). With the project, they seek to develop hydroinformatic tools that are free and open source software which will lower the barrier of entry and use for developing countries who have not heretofore able to operate such systems. Dr. Nelson hopes to further spread the opportunity of better hydrologic data management in Latin America and explore opportunities to have impact in other parts of the world.
2014 Professorship Report
I am very grateful for the support provided through the Weidman professorship for global agility this past year and wanted to make a brief report. Along with the exciting opportunities the professorship has opened up for me I have tried hard and hope that my activities increase the stature of the department, college, and university.
United Nations Group on Earth Observations
I followed up on the activities from the previous year that were linked to the United Nations Group on Earth Observations (GEO) activities. This included taking a greater leadership role in the GEOSS AIP-7 flood modeling activities. In May of 2014 I was able to travel with Dr. David Maidment to the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in London, England and the European Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy. These two organizations are leading an effort in developing a Global Flood Alert System named GloFAS. We discussed with them how we might take advantage of the forecasts to create a National Flood System in the United States and also “downscale” their projections to watersheds in smaller countries like in Latin America and the Caribbean where I have worked extensively. This visit triggered two very important activities for me this year.
First of all as a leader in the GEOSS program, and using my contacts in Latin America, we conducted a pilot program to downscale the ECMWF forecasts to watersheds in Colombia, Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. We worked together with engineers from Esri, the world leader in GIS services, and David Maidment’s research group at the University of Texas to develop a system that shows great promise to increase the capacity for flood forecasting in developing and other countries of Latin America with opportunities for others to similarly adapt.
Besides the GEOSS pilot study that we conducted, the tools and methods developed have become the foundation of a national flood program being developed at the Weather Services’ new National Water Data Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Our research group at BYU will play a significant role in the roll-out of this program at the data center this summer.
World Water Efforts
Our trip to Europe also included a stop at UNESCO-IHE in the Netherlands. IHE provides advanced educational degrees primarily to students of developing countries who lack such opportunities in their own institutions. We are collaborating with them in our World Water efforts, and Dr. Dan Ames has established a study abroad program there similar to what we have been doing in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Our World Water efforts have continued as well. With support from this professorship we continued the development of our language translation for the hydroserver data management and sharing tool and have provided training in Colombia and other locations on its use. See http://worldwater.byu.edu/ for a short video and more information about our activities.
GEOSS in the Americas
In October 2014 I was invited to attend the GEOSS in the Americas meeting held in Bogota, Colombia. Leaders from several Latin American nations gathered to discuss common hydrologic/environmental issues and how the GEO initiatives could better serve them. I made a presentation on water data sharing and was subsequently invited back to meet with the Colombian National Hydrologic Service to provide more information and training which I did in November. I have been invited to present a 2-3 day short course on water data sharing in Cartagena for Latin American agencies this coming May as a part of this effort.
Significant Invitations
These activities have resulted in opportunities to be on the advisory board for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in the North/Central American Region and I have also been nominated to serve on NOAA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) with particular attention given to activities of the new National Water Data Center.
I also was invited to give a presentation at the International Colloquium in Providence this past November on best practices in international programs in Latin America. It was a great opportunity to share my experiences conducting study abroad programs there and also to network and discuss with other leaders in international engineering education their experiences.
Thank You
These activities have been immensely satisfying on a personal level and I am striving to do the kind of work that empowers other BYU faculty and students involved while raising the stature of BYU, the Weidman Center, and our World Water Program. I want to express my deep gratitude to the Weidmans and the Center and College’s leadership for providing me with the professorship opportunity. I’m also grateful to colleagues in the department, specifically Dan Ames through his expertise in CUAHSI HIS and Norm Jones through collaborations from our NSF CI-WATER grant.
Jim Nelson