The University of Iowa will play a pivotal role in a federally run, $360 million project to improve the United States’ ability to predict water-related hazards and manage water resources.

The university will receive $21 million over the next five years as a member of the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology to construct a national database of research on water use and resource management, funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA’s cooperative institute programs create and fund larger research activities and collaborate with universities on projects that support its goals and strategic plan.

Members of the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology were announced earlier this month. The institute will be housed at the Alabama Water Institute at the University of Alabama. The $360 million is the largest external award in the university’s history.

Members of the consortium consist of 28 academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and government and industry partners. The UI is one of the 14 universities involved with the project.

Some of the university partners include Brigham Young University, the University of Arizona, the University of California San Diego, and the University of Minnesota.

Staff at the Iowa Flood Center and IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering center will conduct the research.

Larry Weber, professor of civil and environmental engineering and co-founder of the Iowa Flood Center, said the university will contribute to many research areas. The UI’s key role, he said, will be to take the information systems already created at the university and expand those across the nation.

“Task one is to create new online information tools for people to go and see weather information, and streamflow water quality information open and freely to the general public,” he said.

Ibrahim Demir, UI associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, will be the leading researcher in hydroinformatics, which he explained deals with using and creating novel information and communication systems for the benefit of hydrology and water resources.

“Flood-related products like maps, forecasts, alerts, and others that are critical for the public require hydroinformatics platforms and systems,” Demir said.

Weber said the second task will involve flood-plain mapping to indicate which areas have the highest risk of flooding.

Witold Krajewski, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Iowa Flood Center, said the center is looking to expand on the progress made with the Iowa Flood Information System.

“Iowa is one state, and it was a challenge to do everything that we did statewide, but now our scope is much larger, and the problem that is now facing us is 50 times larger,” Krajewski said.

Krajewski said it may be a challenge to integrate the different systems used by members from other institutions.

“Here in Iowa, nobody was telling us what to do, so it was our vision that we developed, and people liked it and let us do our work,” he said. “In this case, we are not driving the bus, we’re just sitting on it.”

Weber said the UI’s third task will be to produce hydrologic streamflow forecast models, which provide supplemental information to the National Weather Service Forecast.

“One of our goals will be to develop a methodology to fairly evaluate how well flood forecast models work and then use that information to improve our nation’s forecast models to make them better in the future,” he said.

The Iowa Flood Center and IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering center’s fourth and final task will be to create a real-time forecast model for water quality. Weber said there are models available to the public for water flooding and streamflow, but not for water quality.

Weber said the Iowa Flood Center’s forecast and flood models have been accessed over three million times over the past decade by people seeking information about the threat of flooding in their area.

Krajewski said he and the rest of the team feel confident about completing these ambitious tasks given the 100-year history of studying hydraulics and river mechanics at the UI.

“Mother Nature is very complicated and very difficult to outguess, but we have given it a good shot,” he said. “There is always room for improvement, and that’s what we try to do all the time, so we are excited that [CIROH] recognized us.”