Breakout Session Debriefings Breakout Session TIT Coastal and Estuary Modeling Discussion Chair Carl Cerco, US Army Corps of Engineers Presented at the Workshop on Water Quality Modeling for National-Scale Economic Benefit Assessment Washington DC, February 9-10, 2005 ------- DISCLAIMER These proceedings have been prepared by Alpha-Gamma Technologies, Inc. under Contract No. 68-W-01-055 by United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water. These proceedings have been funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The contents of this document may not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency and no official endorsement should be inferred. ------- Coastal and Estuary Modeling Breakout Group Participants Aikman, Frank (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Ali, Ghulum (US EPA, Office of Water) Allen, Ashley (US EPA, Office of Water) Besedin, Elena (Abt Associates, Inc.) Cerco, Carl (US Army Corps of Engineers) Dettmann, Edward (US EPA, Office of Research and Development) Gross, Tom (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Hayter, Earl (US EPA, Office of Research and Development) Helm, Erik (US EPA, Office of Water) Leeworthy, Bob (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) MacWilliams, Lauren (US EPA, Office of Water) Parameswaran, Siva (Texas Tech University) Pascual, Pasky (US EPA, Office of Research and Development) Patchen, Richard (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Powers, John (US EPA, Office of Water) Sheng, Peter (University of Florida) Slawecki, Theodore (Limno Tech, Inc.) Swanson, Craig (Applied Science Associates, Inc.) ------- Cerco: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10, 2005 Estuaries and Coastal Waters Group—Carl Cerco, Discussion Chair Slide #1 "Breakout Session III, Estuaries and Coastal Waters" (Tape IB, Tape counter starts at 1535) We had a really open-ended mission, which was effectively what modeling and benefit issues should EPA be considering? Boy, that's open-ended. Slide #2 "What Should EPA be Thinking About? " (Tape counter starts at 1540) So, here's how we did it: What's an ideal model? Let's make up the perfect model. So, we had a big imagineering session focused on: What's the perfect model? What do we need to get there?—and do these resource currently exist? Slide #3 "What do we need to develop the perfect model? " (Tape counter starts at 1562) What do we need to develop the perfect model? The things we came up with were money, people, data, objectives, buy-in, time, and framework. So, if we had money and people and data and we knew what was expected of us—and we had buy-in, time, and framework, we could develop the perfect model for EPA. Slide #4 "Framework" (Tape counter starts at 1588) The framework is: What is this model made of, this ideal perfect model for EPA? We say the model should be made of good theory, and I hate to say it, but regression is not good theory. Obviously, there has to be a hydrodynamic model. Perhaps less obviously there has to be an atmospheric deposition model. When you go into coastal waters, atmospheric deposition is quite important. It has to have a eutrophication component. It has to have a sediment transport component. There has to be an ecological model— pollutant transport—there must to be a watershed model. There has to be a set of pre- and post-processors for this modeling framework—how do you get stuff into this ideal model and how do you get things out of it? There has to be a set of well-defined endpoints. When we're post-processing, what are we post-processing for? If we visualize the wrong thing, who cares?—so there has to be a set of defined endpoints. This framework should include an economic model, and it should include linkage between all of these models. So, this is what this ideal model should comprise. Now, you see a couple of things up there with question marks. The question marks indicate, "Do these things exist?" Now, there is an abundance of hydrodynamic models out there and everybody thinks his is the best, and I won't even touch that (laughter). . .but there's an abundance of them— let's face it. I do eutrophication modeling and I have to say there's a lot of them out 1 ------- Cerco: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10, 2005 there, and everybody thinks his is the best, but there's not much point in developing another eutrophication model. There's a big question mark next to "ecological model." If you seriously want to compute things like how many fish people are going to catch, you have a real problem. We know this is a first shot at it, but there's a question mark on "How many fish are people going to catch?" Processors—there were big arguments on this. Everybody has a processor—you have to have one, because if you run these models, you can't look at binary and you can't look at thousands of lines of printed output. Do these things exist or not? It was really a big question mark. The answer is, "Yes, they exist." Is there one that would couple all of these things right now? Personally, I think the answer is "No." There was one strong objector who said that it's right out there right now, and if he were here he could say that and all I'd say is, "We disagree." I can't do more than that. This is my opinion—these things are not here. Endpoints—we're not sure about the endpoints, really. What do we want to get from these models? With hydrodynamic models we can compute tide very readily, but do you care? The answer is "Probably not." Linkage and processors are almost the same thing, and this is like the Holy Grail—every agency is working on putting these things together. The visionaries say that it's so easy it's almost done already, and the skeptics say, "You have to be kidding me." I think the linkage is not there, and, again, there would be people who would disagree, and all I can say is, "We disagree." It's really not there in a sense that all of these things can be put together right now—that's my opinion. If somebody wonders where EPA should be looking—what are the basic things EPA needs to look at?—what are the problem areas?—there you see them. Ecological modeling, well defined endpoints, and some processing that's going to make these things talk to each other and interact. Slide #5 "Data" (Tape counter starts at 1782) Data—what do we need? We need observations in the temporal and spatial sense. Observations, to us, mean things that can validate the model, so if you want to validate a eutrophi cation model, you need dissolved oxygen observations. Forcing functions—tides, loads, wind—you know, the things that make the model move. Socioeconomic data—that's kind of a funny thing, but you need some sense of: What's a fishery worth?—What's an oyster worth?—What's a menhaden worth?—How much are people willing to pay for another menhaden?—nothing, in my opinion, but we won't go there either, (laughter) 2 ------- Cerco: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10, 2005 You need a description of the domain. Description of the domain is bathymetry and things of that nature. "Health criteria" is interesting—that came up, and that can be put in a whole lot of different ways: How much mercury kills a fish?—How many viruses make an individual sick?—How much mercury-laden fish can a person eat before he dies of cancer? You need those health criteria. Interestingly, there are no question marks on these. People pretty much think this stuff is out there. That's not to say it's perfect and it's not to say that it's abundant and it's not to say that it can't be improved, but on the whole this stuff is out there. Slide #6 "People" (Tape counter starts at 1845) People—who do we need? We need computer programmers—we need specialists in information technology. There was a lot of debate whether these two are actually different. I don't know, but in any event let's say that a computer programmer writes code whereas an information technology specialist manages data. Biologists, hydrologists, multi-disciplinary scientists, economists, managers, and leaders. We need a visionary. Are we going to get one? Well, Bill Gates is taken, (laughter) I'm being a little facetious, but on the whole, we felt that these people tended to be available. Somebody said that EPA has more managers than it knows what to do with. Possibly, we could put a question mark next to multi-disciplinary scientists, and what might EPA do to generate those?—I don't know. In an ideal world, you have a scholarship program. If the world were ideal, there would be an EPA scholarship for multi-disciplinary science— an EPA chair. So, I'll throw that out there—we're talking ideal. Slide # 7 "Buy-in " (Tape counter starts at 1894) Buy-in. Who has to buy in to this? A fairly large community has to buy in to this ideal model. First of all the government agencies—obviously EPA has to buy in. You would love—I don't know if it will ever happen, but you would love it—if NOAA and the Corps of Engineers would buy in. There's sort of a real problem here between . . . you know, is competition good or is cooperation good? I'm not entirely sure. Personally, I think the idea of one big model that everybody works on—I don't like it. On the other hand, I'm in the minority on this. But, clearly the EPA has to buy in to this concept of the ideal model, and you would love for other agencies to buy into it also. You know, NOAA and the Corps have money, and this thing's going to cost money and if NOAA and the Corps perceive some cooperative effort, something good is going to come of this, so let's say you would like them to buy in. The scientific community has to buy in. There are two things: One is that if they're critical of everything you're doing, you might as well throw what you're doing out. So, in that sense, it's buy-in. Secondly, you need them to develop this thing. I admire the EPA—I admire EPA scientists—I'm a government scientist myself, so I love us, but the fact is we need the scientists to help us out, so they have to buy into this thing. 3 ------- Cerco: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10, 2005 The regulated population has to buy into it—they have to believe in it. Oh boy, here's a big one, but what the heck?—When the watershed model says the bay is getting better and they perceive that it isn't, they're not going to buy into our model. Or, when crazed reporters put in that. . . well, I won't go there, (laughter) The people have to buy into it—they have to believe it. One thing I thought was really interesting and visionary, and I don't know if it can happen—Can you sell this thing to India? Money is short. Can we get international buy- in?—Are there third world problems and is there money out there that could be tapped into to develop this thing? I thought that was a really interesting perception. Slide #8 "Time Accelerators " (Tape counter starts at 1988) We came to the problem of time. How long will it take?—What do we mean by time?— You can have all these ideas—What should we do first? John (Powers) had the idea of time accelerators. I like that concept. What can we do to move this thing along? I myself don't know how long it's going to take—somebody said 10 years—they threw that figure up there. What's an accelerator? This was an interesting concept—what came up was that there should be an immediate prototype of this ideal model, and that this prototype would be used to get people to buy into the concept so that they would provide expertise, money, and resources that would accelerate the process. So, we need to do something within this time course of maybe 2 years that is going to prototype this ideal system. At this point, oh boy, did we have arguments. The bottom line is that everybody has some sort of prototype of this ideal coupled model system. The Bay Program and I run one—the Corps itself has others—private consulting firms have them—and everybody has a different idea of what this should be. One thing we agreed on is that this prototype . . . since we all have them, what's different? What is really necessary to get people to buy in to this thing. You know, visuals are mesmerizing—people I work with put out these visualizations of their models and they're hypnotic—people love them. So, we can all hypnotize them, but what do we really want from this thing to get people to buy in? We want environmental endpoints. Typically, what do we visualize from a hydrodynamic model?—currents or tides. What do we visualize from a water quality model?—dissolved oxygen. But, what we really want to visualize are things like: How many fish are you going to catch?—How many days of swimming did you lose?—What's the probability of getting sick if you go in the water?—So, we want that. We would like, in order to get buy-ins, to make this thing a multiple-user system if that's possible, and we would like for this thing to demonstrate economies of scale. What we mean is that if everybody works on this model—this ideal model—this great model—it's cheaper than having 10,000 models out there. Slide #9 "Money" (Tape counter starts at 2095) 4 ------- Cerco: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10, 2005 Money—what's this ideal model going to cost?—Who knows? We thought you could get a good prototype going for a million dollars. I don't know, but there's a number. We thought that if you didn't have a million, you could take a first shot for half a million. Anything less than that is going to be an embarrassment. If you want to do a great job, it's going to cost $10 million. You know, just throw some numbers out there. Just in summary, if EPA says, "Where should we go first?"—you heard ecological models, processors, and linkages. If you want to know what can be done to move this thing along, you need a quick prototype of this ideal model system, and I'll stop right there. Q&A Tim Bondelid, RTI International (Tape counter starts at 2134) I'll make one comment on the international front. I've done some work overseas in developing countries, and I don't think we'll get so much buy-in, but we will, in developing these things, provide a great service to the world because they are very hungry for these things. In the portfolio of every donor agency, when it comes to water, integrative water resources management is at the top of the list in institutional strengthening. So, I don't think we're going to get money coming in from the other countries, but I think it would provide a great service to the world through outreach. 5 ------- Cerco: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10. 2005 Water Quality Modeling for National-Scale Economic Benefit Assessment Breakout Session 3: Estuaries and Coastal Waters What Should EPA Be Thinking About? What Would Be the "Ideal" Water Quality/ Economic Benefits Modeling System? What is Needed to Develop This Model? Does These Resources Currently Exist? 6 ------- Cerco: Debrieflngs from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10. 2005 What do we need to develop the perfect model? Money People Data Objectives Buy-in Time Framework Framework Good Theory Hydro model Atmospheric Deposition Eutrophication Sediment Transport Ecological Model? Pollutant Transport and Fate Watershed Processors? Endpoints? Economic Model Linkage? 7 ------- Cerco: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10. 2005 Observations (Temporal, Spatial) Forcing Functions Socioeconomic Data Description of Domain Health Criteria People Programmers Information Technology Biologists Hydrologists Multidisciplinary Scientists Economists Managers Leaders a ------- Cere©: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10. 2005 Political Savvy EPA, NOAA, USAGE, etc.. Scientific Community Regulated Population International Time Accelerators <10 Years Immediate Prototype for Buy-in (2 Years) Training, Communication Identify Parallel Tasks Economic, Engineer Linkage Deadline Whafs Different ¦ Environmental Endpoint ¦ Public Well-being ¦ Multiple User ¦ Economy of Scale 9 ------- Cere©: Debriefings from Breakout Session III, Coastal and Estuary Modeling February 10. 2QQ5 Money Prototype $1,000,000 First Shot $500,000 Great Job $10,000,000 10 ------- |