Form:Annualmeeting2018

CSDMS 2018: Geoprocesses, geohazards

May 22 -24^th 2018, Boulder Colorado, USA

Registration

Registration is will open mid January, 2018.

Introduction

Natural hazards impact thousands of people every year; floods, droughts, extreme storms, landslides, wildfires, permafrost erosion all change the Earth's surface and inflict tremendous damage to human infrastructure. Most often, humans respond to disasters "after the fact" and a paradigm shift is needed to a strategy of resilience that would provide a way to reduce vulnerability to disasters and their impacts before they occur. Numerical models of earth surface processes are one tool to simulate natural hazards and provide quantitative pre-event risk assessment. Yet, such assessments are only appropriate if the models capture all important physical processes, when the models are tested and well-vetted, when they are useable and proven accurate. This workshop aims to identify what are critical missing components in our ability to provide better assessment of earth surface change in face of natural hazards. The meeting will bring together experts in earth surface process modeling in a three-day hands-on workshop to identify shortcomings in our current natural hazard process understanding, both fundamentally in the earth surface processes as well as in the modeling approaches and technology. The workshop aims to improve natural hazard modeling for risk assessment, with a special focus on building a next-generation cyberinfrastructure and a community of modern modeling and data analysis practice, including high performance computing techniques.

Objectives and general description

Numerical models of earth surface processes are one tool to simulate natural hazards and provide quantitative pre-event risk assessment. Such assessments are only appropriate if the models capture all important physical processes, when the models are tested and well-vetted, when they are useable and proven accurate. The CSDMS 2018 natural hazards workshop aims to:

1. Identify new frontiers in fundamental process understanding in earth surface and natural hazards modeling. New algorithms, cyberinfrastructure development and new model couplings appear paramount to explore important process dynamics and linkages.
2. Identify needs and develop strategies for model testing, model validation and model benchmarking against natural disasters as they happen, and rapidly afterwards. Massive high-resolution topographic data acquisition allows for more rigorous model to real-world data testing, but what are the obstacles and needs for improved use of disasters as opportunities for improving process models?
3. Identify what are critical missing components in our ability to provide better assessment of earth surface change in face of natural hazards. How do we design scenario modeling, how do we communicate the uncertainty in model outcomes?
4. Built researcher-to-researcher connections. Better connect earth surface process modelers with modelers of primary and secondary forcings, as well as social sciences and engineers to allow exploration of the human dimensions of natural disasters.

As in past meetings, keynote speakers are by invitation only, and poster presentations are the general media. The meeting will include:

• State-of-the art keynote presentations in earth-surface dynamics and modeling of natural hazards
• Hands-on clinics related to community models, tools and approaches
• Transformative software products and approaches designed to be accessible, easy to use, and relevant
• Breakout sessions discussing:
  • Fundamentals of earth surface processes and hazard modeling; missing links and model coupling.
  • Disasters are opportunities; challenges and needs for validation and benchmarking of process models against extreme events?
  • Towards measures of risk: how to include human dimensions of natural disasters in numerical models?
  • Hazard assessment: strategies and technological needs for modeling of scenarios of extreme events with future change to improve hazard prevention.
• Poster Sessions
• Consider signing up for the pre- and post-conference meetings as well. See below for more information on these.

Poster Information: The poster boards are configured for 4' wide by 6' tall (portrait orientation) posters.

Agenda

The agenda will be posted closer to date.

Keynote Speakers

Keynote speakers will be listed as soon as we receive a confirmation.

Clinic Leaders

Irina Overeem & Mark Piper CU, CSDMS-IF

Bringing CSDMS Models into the Classroom

Reimbursement

Within its budget, CSDMS intends to support member applicants to attend the annual meeting. Towards this goal, we encourage members to fully or partially cover their expenses if capable. We additionally thank those in the industry and agency fields for understanding that 1) we cannot compensate federal agency participants since our own funding is from NSF, and 2) we request that our industrial/ corporate participants cover their own costs thereby allowing more academic participants to attend.

To the extent possible, CSDMS intends to reimburse the registration fee (for those that registered before April 2^nd and who send a request after the meeting to Lynn McCready at csdms@colorado.edu by the deadline of June 30th, 2018), lodging (shared rooms at 100% and single rooms at 50% at conference hotels for the evenings of May 22nd, 23rd and 24th), and a limited amount of travel expenses for qualified registrants (keynote speakers and clinic leaders and student scholarship awardees)."

Important for foreign travelers: If you need a visa to travel to USA, select a business visa. Please email csdms@colorado.edu as soon as possible if you need an invitation letter and indicate any specific wording required. We will need to copy the entry stamp in your passport sometime during the meeting as proof that you were here on business as required by US tax laws (especially when dealing with airfare reimbursements). We are only able to provide reimbursement for airfare within the U.S. and in airlines that are U.S. flag carriers.

Travel, Lodging and Conference Center Information

The meeting will be held at SEEC
Hotel: Millennium Harvest House Hotel
Transportation: You can book transportation between DIA and Boulder here: Green Ride Boulder. And information on how to find Green Ride Boulder at DIA.
We will provide a bus between the Millennium Harvest House Hotel and the meeting venue each day (the shuttle is not able to stop at other area hotels). We will also provide transportation from the Millennium Harvest House Hotel to the banquet (again, the shuttle is not able to stop at other area hotels). Please note that the parking adjacent to the SEEC building now requires payment for non-permit holders. You will need to park in the limited designated areas and provide payment in the adjacent kiosks.

Pre-conference events

The following will apply to both the Software Carpentry bootcamp and the HPC workshop pre-conference events:

• Registration is open till April 2^nd (or until program fills) and is handled through the 2018 meeting site.
  
• Each is capped at 30 participants (first paid first serve), and it has a $30 registration fee.
• Participant will be responsible for cost / organization of their extra day of hotel accommodation and dinner. Costs will not be reimbursed.
• We will cover coffee, continental breakfast and lunch during each of the events.
  

Software Carpentry bootcamp

CSDMS will host a one-day pre-conference Software Carpentry bootcamp on Monday May 21^nd, 2018, led by Mariela Perignon and Mark Piper.
The objective of the bootcamp is to teach basic programming skills that are useful for scientific computing and model development. This is an intensive, hands-on workshop for novice programmers and those with minimal experience in the specific topics covered. Instructors will cover basic elements of:

1. the Unix bash shell,
2. Python programming with Numpy, and
3. Github for version control.

Our instructors are earth scientists and have familiarity with the CSDMS framework. Lessons and examples will be targeted toward relevant problems in the geosciences. The bootcamp intentionally precedes the CSDMS meeting, so the skills participants develop should be useful in the clinics during the meeting.

Post-conference hackathon

CSDMS will host a one-day post-conference hackathon on Friday May 25^th, 2018, organized by Eric Hutton and Mark Piper.

A hackathon is loosely defined as a social gathering with the goal of collaboratively creating usable software. Here, we’ll hack BMIs.

The motivation is that a BMI-ed model can be converted into a CSDMS component, which allows it to be called from PyMT and included in WMT, thereby increasing the visibility and use of the model. Each attendee is invited to bring a model of their choice¹ to wrap with a BMI. The model can be in any CSDMS-supported language (C, C++, Fortran, Java, Python). Attendees should be proficient in the language of their chosen model. Attendees will be required to submit their model code to CSDMS staff before April 2, so that the hackathon organizers have time to familiarize themselves with the code. The attendees will work together to add BMIs to models. CSDMS staff will guide participants and provide technical assistance. The ultimate goal of the hackathon is to get each participant's model wrapped with a BMI. This is a lofty goal. The more likely outcome is that each participant will have a good start on getting their model wrapped.

Before the hackathon, attendees are expected to have read:

• BMI description
• BMI documentation (http://bmi-python.readthedocs.io)

and to have attended a BMI clinic in the current or in an earlier year. Attendees need a laptop with either a working compiler for the language of their choice or an account on beach​. To make the most of the hackathon, attendees should attempt to prepare their model for a BMI by refactoring it into initialize (sets the initial state of the model), update (advances the model by one time step), and finalize (shuts down the model) subprograms.

¹ If an attendee doesn’t have a model to wrap, but does express a language preference, we will provide them with a simple model in their language that they can wrap; however, attendees who bring their own model will have precedence if space is an issue.

Note:

• Registration is open till April 2^st (or until program fill) and is handled through the 2018 meeting site.
  
• The hackathon is capped at 12 participants (first paid first serve), and it has a $30 registration fee.
• Participant will be responsible for cost / organization of their extra day of hotel accommodation and dinner. Costs will not be reimbursed.
• We will cover coffee, continental breakfast and lunch during the hackathon.
  
  

Student Scholarships

This year CSDMS is offering a limited number of scholarships (up to 5) for graduate students to attend the CSDMS annual meeting. These scholarships will be offered for the purpose of increasing participation of underrepresented students or those that have not previously attended. To be eligible, graduate students need to meet the following requirements:

• Attend the whole meeting (May 22-24, 2018)
• Submit an abstract
• Be enrolled as a graduate student at the time of the meeting (bring proof)
• Submit a letter of motivation that states why you wish to participate in the meeting, and explain how your participation would enhance diversity in the field of natural hazards and surface dynamics modeling. Be sure to mention if it is your first time attending.

Send your application materials to csdms@colorado.edu by February 19^th, 2018. The CSDMS scholarships will cover:

• Registration costs (you will still need to pay the registration fee, but will be reimbursed after attending the meeting)
• Hotel accommodations for three nights, starting May 21^nd. (as outlined in Travel/Lodging section above - 100% paid if you agree to a roommate)
• Travel (air fare ONLY within the United States and local transport)
• Per diem to help reimburse the cost of meals from 22-24 May 2018 not offered in the conference schedule

All applicants will receive confirmation of their submission. Please notify us at csdms@colorado.edu if you do not receive confirmation within 24 hours of submission.

Important dates

• January 14^th: Registration opens
• February 19^th: Deadline for student scholarship applications CSDMS
• April 1^st: Deadline for abstract submission & discounted early registration
• May 14^th: Deadline regular registration. Notice additional costs do apply.
• May 22-24^th: CSDMS annual meeting
• May 25^th: CSDMS Executive and Steering committees meetings (by invitation only)