Gazing into the Future

(continued next page) Dealing with nature’s complexities has always pushed scientists and engineers to search for new paradigms and tools to advance their understanding. In recent years, researchers in multiple disciplines have been working to create computerbased models of large-scale natural processes that are predictive of future events. The creation of such models depends on understanding processes in small areas in great detail, so that data can be accurately extrapolated to large landscapes. Doing so is the vision of a major NSF (National Science Foundation) initiative to establish a series of national centers that focus on Earth’s natural elements and ecosystems. These digital field observatories, if they materialize, could thrust science and education in new directions. CGRER’s members have been especially active in efforts to establish a center that focuses on water-related processes in natural and disturbed landscapes. To understand this concept in more detail, travel back to around 2000, when a nationwide group of research hydrologists – scientists and engineers who study the flow of water as it cycles above, over, and underneath Earth’s surface – met to discuss mechanisms for pushing their