SI2-SSI: Collaborative Research: Building Sustainable Tools and Collaboration for Volcanic and Related Hazards

This project is focused on creating and upgrading software infrastructure for a large community of scientists engaged in volcanology research and associated hazard analysis. Specifically, the project will reengineer three widely used tools (TITAN2D - block and ash flows, TEPHRA and Puff - ash transport and dispersal) and develop support for workflows that use these tools to analyze risk from volcanic hazards. Reengineering will encompass modularization so researchers may easily experiment with different modeling approaches, incorporation of techniques to make the tools efficient on new computing architectures like GPUs and many-core chips. The workflows are intended to tackle the challenges of managing complex and often large data flows associated with these tools in validation processes and in probabilistic inference based on the outcomes of the modeling. The tools and workflows will be made available using the popular vhub.org platform. This project will help provide a standard well managed hardware/software platform and approaches to standardize the documentation associated with input data, source code, and output data. This will ensure that model calculations are reproducible. The wider use of these high fidelity tools and their use in mitigating hazards is likely to have a significant effect on hazard analysis and management. The project will also engage in several major workshops and in training activities. Project personnel will also engage in the Earthcube initiative - popularizing computational methodologies, online access and dissemination mechanisms through the VHub platform.