Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 22:23:02 -0400
To: Jim Smith <jsmith@Princeton.EDU>, "Glenn E Moglen" <gmoglen@usgs.gov>,Kaye Brubaker <klbrubak@eng.umd.edu>,
Karen Prestegaard <kpresto@glue.umd.edu>, Keith Eshleman <eshleman@al.umces.edu>, Marc Parlange <mbparlange@jhu.edu>, Peter WIlcock <wilcock@jhu.edu>, Jim Pizzuto <pizzuto@UDel.Edu>, Paul Imhoff <imhoff@ce.udel.edu>, Laura Toran <ltoran@temple.edu>, Michael Piasecki <Michael.Piasecki@drexel.edu>,
Steward Pickett <picketts@ecostudies.org>, Peter Groffman <groffmanp@ecostudies.org>, "'Phil Townsend'" <townsend@al.umces.edu>, "Margaret Palmer (E-mail)" <mp3@umail.umd.edu>, Chris Swan <cmswan@umbc.edu>, James M Gerhart <jgerhart@usgs.gov>, Gary T Fisher <gtfisher@usgs.gov>, "Robert J Shedlock" <rjshedlo@usgs.gov>, jennings.david@epa.gov, tjarnagin@usgs.gov, Richard Pouyat <rpouyat@fs.fed.us>, Ken Belt <kbelt@fs.fed.us>, Brian Reed <reedb@umbc.edu>, jgwo@umbc.edu, Upal Ghosh <ughosh@umbc.edu>, hornberger@virginia.edu, Sue Kilham <kilhams@drexel.edu>, Joel Baker <baker@cbl.umces.edu>, Bruce Hayden <bph@virginia.edu>, "Michael J. Paul" <mjpaul@Howard.edu>, apdavis@eng.umd.edu
From: Claire Welty <weltyc@umbc.edu>
Subject: Proposal for a Mid-Atlantic Hydrologic Observatory
Cc: weltyc@umbc.edu, Andrew Miller <miller@umbc.edu>

Colleagues:

The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) has announced that NSF will be funding a national network of field-scale hydrologic observatories. If you are not familiar with this effort, you can learn more from CUAHSI's web site at: http://www.cuahsi.org.

Today at a Board of Directors meeting a plan of action for the next few years was discussed, and based on this Andy Miller and I am writing to you to determine the interest in the Mid-Atlantic region for submitting a proposal to the hydrologic observatory funding competition.

We believe that proposing the Potomac River Basin plus the Baltimore-Washington megalopolis as the study area may serve the interests of many researchers in the region. We realize that this may sound rather large for an "observatory", but this is the scale of what CUAHSI has in mind. The actual areas chosen to be instrumented would depend on the science questions to be addressed.
A written prospectus from each interested group is due to CUAHSI in August 2004 and full proposals are due to National Science Foundation in April 2005. We know of about ten other groups in the U.S. that are in the process of putting together proposals.
UMBC would be happy to host a meeting to get together to discuss ideas (Potomac or an alternative) if people want to move forward with this. Time is of the essence, so a meeting will have to be held sooner rather than later. Of course this is a difficult time of year for academics, with exams, thesis defenses, and graduation closing in on us.

Please reply if you are interested in pursuing this, and please also forward this e-mail to anyone whom you think may want to participate. CUAHSI is especially interested in seeing applicants partner with existing field efforts (e.g., USDA, USGS, NSF-LTER, university field sites) and with state and federal agencies.

Sincerely,
Claire Welty and Andy Miller
UMBC
--
Claire Welty
Director, Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
1000 Hilltop Circle
TRC 102
Baltimore, MD 21250
Phone: 410-455-1766
Fax: 410-455-1769
E-mail: weltyc@umbc.edu
Web: http://userpages.umbc.edu/~weltyc/
CUERE web site: http://www.umbc.edu/cuere