Towards an open and integrated cyberinfrastructure for river morphology research in the big data era

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present the initial illustration of a cyberinfrastructure named the RIver MORPHology Information System (RIMORPHIS) that addresses the current limitations related to river morphology data and tools. RIMORPHIS is supported by a data model for storing river morphology data. A new specification for data and semantics on river morphology datasets has been developed to support the web-based platform for discovering and visualization of river morphology data. Several geoprocessing tools are developed that enable scientific analysis and practical studies, including the coordinate transformation, cross-section generation and bathymetry mesh generation. Our vision for RIMORPHIS is to create a self-sustained community platform with tools to support scientific discoveries on river morphology and to enable multidisciplinary research for riverine environments. To accomplish this vision, we created a community to gather input and build partnerships. The RIMORPHIS cyberinfrastructure addresses the community needs related to data access, processing and visualization. The current implementation of RIMORPHIS is scalable for new data and tools.