An Open and Big Data Platform for Cumulative Environmental Analysis and Management

Modern societies around the world face new challenges involving climate change, droughts, land use and development, resource extraction, population growth and rapid urbanization. These massive forces and their interconnections are having a dramatic effect on the way these societies manage and analyze their water resources. More specifically, problems such as the impact of extreme weather events (e.g., Droughts, floods, hurricanes) on urban systems (e.g., Roads, trains, buses), rural farm land, energy infrastructures, and emergency management systems, to name a few, are interrelated in very complex ways. Excess water in general, for example, has been a significant consequence of these events and is now the leading cause of insurance claims for infrastructure and property damage. To deal with such challenges, governments recognize that plans for growth must reflect the needs and opportunities of local communities while balancing the cumulative effects of economic growth with environmental concerns. In this paper we describe our collaborative efforts to develop and deploy cumulative effect decision support software (CEDSS) tools as an open and big data cloud-based platform for cumulative environmental analysis and management.