00:01Thank you. So I'm going to be talking today about something that's possibly a little far removed from what most of you do…

00:06…which is thinking about geodesign and, particularly, hydrologic modeling as a game.

00:11And this is a game that's targeted at middle and high school students.

00:15This is an NSF-funded project that we've worked on with a number of partners, the hydrologists and educators at the…

00:22…Stroud Water Research Center as well as Dana Tomlin at the Cartographic Modeling Lab…

00:26…and our education partner, Nanette Marcum-Dietrich at Millersville University.

00:31Azavea is a software development company, so we're really focused both on implementing the models that were developed…

00:36…as well as building a web application that you'll be seeing here.

00:40As I mentioned, this is an NSF project. It's part of the ITEST program, Innovative Technology Experiences for Students…

00:47…and the goal is to get students engaged with science, technology, engineering, and math-related careers.

00:53We're working, in particular, with a set of middle and high school students and their teachers.

00:56So at each school, about six that we're working with…

00:59…there's a math teacher and a science teacher who are helping develop curriculum around watershed modeling…

01:06…and integrating this application into the teaching experience.

01:11The Schuylkill watershed is where we're doing the pilot project for this, as I'll talk about later.

01:15We're hoping to scale it up to the national level.

01:17But right now, this is restricted to an area, as you can see, just north and west of Philadelphia that drains into the Schuylkill River.

01:26And this includes areas both that are highly urbanized as well as more suburban and rural areas.

01:31So we have students represented from each of these kinds of areas…

01:34…and we consider them sort of experts on the areas that they live…

01:37…and our hope is that in…in concert with the other students who are participating…

01:41…they can educate each other on what the environments, the built environments that they live in, are like.

01:48The first phase, as we know in geodesign, is assessment.

01:51And so one component of that is gathering data.

01:53Now for this application, we got data from federal agencies primarily, so the USGS and USDA for data on land cover…

02:02…elevation, and soil.

02:05This is all at a 30-meter resolution, which is suitable for scaling to the national level, but as you might imagine…

02:10…when you're looking at a local or regional level, isn't as much suited to site-level design as neighborhood- or regional-level design.

02:19So that's, you know, either a strength or a weakness of this, depending on how you look at this.

02:24The other data that we used in the model is precipitation data as well as potential evapotranspiration data.

02:31And I don't know if I…I think some of you in the audience are clearly hydrologists, so I have to watch out…

02:36…because I only know what I've learned as a part of working on this project.

02:40But what we're working with is a water budget model, so an annual water balance that has three components.

02:47The first is runoff, and that's a major concern.

02:50The other two components are infiltration, so that's water that's going back into the groundwater and recharging aquifers…

02:56…as well as evapotranspiration, so water that's going up into the atmosphere either through evaporation or plant transpiration.

03:05Now the standard model that's used very, very commonly is TR-55, which was released by the USDA.

03:13But it's really best for areas that are not built, so forest, grassland, things like that, and, in particular…

03:22…if you're using in built areas, we're looking at cases where there's less than two inches of precipitation in a storm.

03:29So what we did was actually combine that with a small storm's model that's appropriate for built areas…

03:32…like you find around Philadelphia for precipitation less than two inches in a day.

03:39The first thing we did was introduce students to this concept on a very simple level.

03:43So this is just one type of land cover, one type of soil, and then a precipitation slider.

03:48And so what students are able to do is, whoops, I thought maybe there was laser beam here…oh, here we go.

03:56So students can change the land-cover type by selecting one of these typical land covers.

04:02They can change the soil type and then they can change the amount of precipitation in a day.

04:06And all of these arrows and the water balance column will dynamically change to reflect those changes.

04:14So that's at the simplest level, but when we're talking about site-level planning, we're really talking about larger areas.

04:20So we wanted to introduce students to the concept…

04:21…and then make sure that they understand what it is when we're getting to the site-level analyses.

04:27So when students are going to model an area, they can first define the study area.

04:32And one way to do that is to select one of the existing watersheds as delineated by the USGS.

04:40And once they do that, you see this land-cover table on the right that populates.

04:44And that's a very typical GIS function.

04:47That…that's a zonal summary function, basically looking at the land cover in the area that's selected and then…

04:51…and presenting some summary statistics.

04:53So, again, this is part of the assessment phase.

04:55We were trying to understand the natural landscape.

04:59Students are also able to do something that is one of my personal favorite features here, which is a flow-point model.

05:04So what they can do is click on any point, say their house or their school…

05:09…and using elevation data and flow direction data derived from that, we can see all the areas that flow into that point…

05:15…so you can understand, you know, what is the landscape that's affecting my location.

05:21And as you can see, these often take strange shapes, but when you overlay that over our terrain map, those flows make more sense.

05:27And then, finally, students could draw an area.

05:29So this is one high school that we're working with so you can just digitize the area on the map…

05:34…and then get a summary of information for a very small area of interest.

05:40Now, as you might imagine, I just want to mention here that students are using this application, and that's who it's targeted at.

05:46But there are a lot of applications that are possible in terms of citizen science as well.

05:50So one of the goals of the Stroud Water Research Center, once this application is available online, is for citizen groups to use it as well.

05:57So perhaps, you could think of a scenario where a big box store is moving into an urban or rural area…

06:02…and they're proposing a site, and it's going to have an impact on the environment.

06:08Maybe they're going to put in, you know, standard blacktop and a big box store.

06:13A citizen could model what that might look like, or they could also model, as you'll see shortly…

06:19…what it might look like if they were to implement best management practices.

06:21So citizens with this kind of knowledge can arm themselves to effect change in their communities.

06:28Now as I mentioned, we have this land-cover summary here that can be switched on and off.

06:33There are layers like rivers as well as administrative boundaries.

06:37You can understand the sort of different levels at which watersheds need to be managed.

06:42Once you've delineated an area, you can also start a simulation.

06:45So what you'll see here, again, is a daily water balance column where students can change the amount of daily precipitation…

06:52…and then see what the impact of that is.

06:53So we're talking about change again.

06:55So we have a pre-Columbian water balance, which is the assumption that it's primarily forested areas…

07:01…or, what you have are the current conditions, so what do things look like with a storm of two inches as things are now…

07:07…as human development has changed the environment.

07:09So this is all sort of understanding how the environment functions as it currently is.

07:14The second component of the application is modify my watershed.

07:18So here is when we get into modeling change.

07:20And what students are able to do with this is basically paint on the landscape.

07:24So, they have their analysis area defined.

07:27There's the initial condition, the current condition, and then the condition as…as it is based on their modifications.

07:33And so, a student can pick any land-cover type.

07:36They can also pick [unintelligible] like green roofs, infiltration basins, rain gardens, porous paving…

07:42…and paint those onto the landscape and see what the changes might look like.

07:46So I've done a couple here. I don't know if they're showing up well.

07:48There's this no-till farming, cluster housing, and then a land-cover type of forest.

07:55And so there're a couple statistics worth seeing here.

07:57One is just the change in the water balance column. I think you can…

08:01…you may not be able to make out that runoff is decreased by one inch in this area, which is a good thing.

08:07Infiltration has also increased correspondingly.

08:11And then we've developed a couple other factors just based on an internal model…

08:16…to encourage students to think more globally about the impact of their changes.

08:20So one is a social impact score.

08:23So, obviously, the environment is a great thing, but we know that there are tradeoffs involved in any kinds of planning decisions.

08:28So if you were to replace, say, high-density housing with a bunch of forest…

08:35…you know, that might be great for the water balance, but it's not great for human development.

08:38So how do you balance these priorities?

08:41So what we're looking at is creating a scoring system that encourages students to take all these different things into account.

08:47Teachers will set goals for students. They earn points if they complete those goals.

08:52And then they can submit those scores and view them on leaderboards.

08:55So I'm just going to wrap up here.

08:58This exciting for us.

08:59It's a product of our R&D program, and we built it using a distributed calculation engine.

09:04So, basically, computation is distributed across multiple computers, threads, or processors…

09:11…which allows us to do this quickly on the web.

09:13The operations are composable.

09:14So I talked to you about the model that we implemented here, but if you're looking at other land-use conservation models…

09:21…those are equally applicable, and then, finally, it's scalable.

09:24So this is in the Schuylkill watershed, but this could be scaled up to the national scale very easily.

09:29And we're going to be rolling this out in February.

09:31And finally, the thing that's exciting about this in relation to geodesign is that it's place-based learning.

09:36So students can do all kinds of exercises in the classroom, but here we're using real data and real models.

09:42They can look for their house or their school and make a plan about that…

09:46…which gets them excited about being stewards of the environment and just generally active citizens.

09:52Again, this is at the speed of the web, so anyone can access this.

09:55It's a simple, playful interface. You don't have to be a specialist as a designer or GIS analyst.

10:00And, again, you know, this is going beyond the classroom as well.

10:03So these are tools that are for use by students, but citizen scientists can use them as well.

10:08So, as I said, our plans are to scale up to the national level, roll this out on tablets so you can use it in the field…

10:14…and then the scenarios that teachers create as part of sort of a cloud infrastructure could be shared.

10:19So if you're an expert about your area in the northeast, you could share that to someone maybe in the southwest…

10:25…who has a really different landscape to encourage people to understand a variety of landscapes.