From SwissExperiment

About SwissEx

The latter half of the twentieth century saw full emergence of the concept that the behaviour of planet Earth can only be understood in terms of the coupling between the dynamic processes in the atmosphere, the solid Earth, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the biosphere and the anthroposphere. All of these components are interlinked by a network of forcing and feedback mechanisms that affect the other components. Global-scale effects can arise from regional processes, and global-scale behaviour can have widely different regional manifestations. In addidtion, processes acting at one time scale can have consequences across a wide range of other time scales.

The Changing Earth, ESA, 2006

Introduction

The Swiss Experiment (SwissEx) is an initiative of the Competence Centre Environment and Sustainability (CCES) which has been created to provide a platform for large scale sensor network deployment and information retrieval and exploitation. SwissEx is a collaboration of environmental science and technology research projects (both from CCES and other institutions across Switzerland) which will integrate field experiments in a common modern generic cyberinfrastructure on an unprecedented scale. This collaboration will allow common acquisition technologies to be shared and encourage data sharing and preservation of knowledge through the use of a state-of-the-art data storage and processing infrastructure. Through the re-use of data, the SwissEx aims to bridge the traditional scientific domains, broadening scientific knowledge on the interdisciplinary process interactions with the aim of eventually exploiting these links in large scale sensor deployments to improve environmental hazard forecasting and warning. The challenge is threefold: Scientific: The use of a generic system for the collection of data (for a wide range of parameters, space and time scales) and for assistance in data validation and interpretation. Technological: The deployment of a large number of sensors with differing requirements for data rates, resolutions, embedded intelligence, cost, data acquisition, streaming, storage, security, authorization etc. Knowledge Management: Recording the collection scenario, methods, locations and times of data acquisition and post-processing alongside the real-time data and allowing scientists to effectively search for their required data.

In the environmental science domain, drawing accurate scientific conclusions, forecasting or validating models requires widespread temporal and spatial environmental monitoring. The overhead in collecting these observations is large and very often duplicated between projects and institutions. The data collected may be more effectively used if it were shared between synergetic projects. Using these synergies also helps us to understand the links between interdisciplinary processes.

Swiss Experiment Background

The Swiss Experiment aims to provide a platform for large sensor network deployment and information retrieval, providing measurements of an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution and simultaneous deployment of a wide range of sensor types. The aim of these type of deployments is to broaden scientific knowledge on the interdisciplinary process interactions, provide previously unavailable access to data required for extending and validating environmental models, to feed the broader community of environmental hazard prevention and to provide a platform for environmental education and public data access.

It is hoped that SwissEx will help to build a new community of collaboration between the public, environmental scientists and administration. This should lead to a new and better way to conduct environmental science and environment-related decision making.

To this end, a wide variety of environmental research projects have begun to collaborate through Swiss Experiment. These environmental projects cover research into the Alpine environmental hazards and their contributary factors:

• APUNCH:
  • Coupled hydrological hazards (precipitation)
• COGEAR:
  • Seismic monitoring
• MOUNTLAND:
  • Sustainable land use
• BigLink:
  • Soil formation and its hydrological influences
• TRAMM:
  • Slope instability (landslides and avalanches)
• RECORD:
  • River restoration and its effects on the surrounding environment
• EXTREMES:
  • Analysis of extreme environmental events such that their influences may be better understood
• HYDROSYS:
  • On-site environmental monitoring capability
• SensorScope:
  • Rapidly deployable, cheap, mobile networked sensor capability
• GSN:
  • Generic data acquisition and databasing capability
• SensorMap:
  • Data visualisation capability
• PermaSense:
  • Long-term monitoring of high-alpine permafrost

The projects listed above are those to be included in the start-up phase, although it is expected that the capabilities of SwissEx will broaden as more projects are included.

Added to these capabilities, external sensor networks currently highly developed and considered part of the national environmental monitoring system will also be integrated to increase the spatial and temporal resolution and range of the data available. Models such as SNOWPACK and ALPINE 3D as well as hydrological models will also be integrated to provide real-time model output.

The first stage of Swiss Experiment is for each of these projects to develop their environmental monitoring capability, such that the infrastructure is available and the data is understood. During this stage, the environmental projects will integrate with all of the supporting infrastructure projects, such that the underlying structure and capabilities are equal throughout all of the projects.

The second stage of Swiss Experiment will be to integrate the environmental projects so that they may exploit their synergies, e.g. how the results of APUNCH may impact on RECORD or TRAMM. In order to do this, the separate projects will deploy to common sites using the infrastructure that they have developed in their independent start-up phases.

One of the aims of Swiss Experiment is that the infrastructure and knowledge may be deployed to assist the forecasting and warning services. This may mean rapidly deploying large scale sensor networks to areas of predicted extreme events in order to predict the possible hazards which may form and advise the authorities so that they may take preventative measures.

Benefits

The unique benefits of this multidisciplinary collaboration are expected to lead to improvements in:

• Predicting extreme events, assessing accuracy of predictions as function of available data
• Quantifying spatial and temporal variability and scaling in the environment with respect to natural hazards formation and environmental quality
• Assessing the earthquake hazard potential and its frequency characterization for large and major events
• Monitoring environmental change and documenting environmental quality

Project Deliverables

The project's deliverables will consist of:

• Capacity building in designing experiments based on multi-sensoral, multi-scale and multidisciplinary approaches
• Support to CCES project experimental sites in the Swiss Alps and the Swiss Plateau.
• New sensing devices (cheap, autonomous stations) and controlled sensing strategies
• Integration of external data sources within a SwissEx data portal
• Integrated wireless data and metadata collection and management infrastructure with stream processing capabilities.
• Data mining and visualization methods and tools
• Transfer of knowledge through an environmental education program with school children as part of the SwissEx outreach activities

Support and Funding

During its first (start-up) phase, SwissEx has developed into a strong activity of CCES projects and has received continuing support from all involved institutions (WSL, EPFL, ETHZ, EAWAG). External funding from partners such as NCCR MICS, EU, SNF and Microsoft has already been secured. EU funding has also been secured for the HYDROSYS project. SwissEx has begun to develop critical activities in the areas of sensor, data technology, education and community building. These efforts support the partner projects of the Competence Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CCES) through the deployment of sensing networks, data infrastructure design and cyber-collaboration platforms.

A successful SwissEx project will certainly be an ETH domain flagship programme because of its interdisciplinary nature and because it creates a new scientific community that transcends institutional and disciplinary boundaries. One pillar of successful research in Switzerland has always been experiment- and technology-based research. The SwissEx would be an important new milestone in that tradition, yet the new methodology described here will bring increased benefit and impact on the society.

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