"Thinking in Workflows"

A result of the Digital Earth project is the concept of "thinking in workflows". With the Digital Earth Flood Event Explorer we demonstrate how an overarching problem can be broken down into the following individual workflows in order to enable further analytical actions: The Climate Change Workflow allows to investigate the change of flood related climate variables such as precipitation or soil moisture under a changing climate. The Flood Similarity Workflow is focusing on the assessment of hydro-meteorological controls of flood events. The Socio-Economic Impact Workflow integrates a variety of data sources to explore controls on the socio-economic impact of floods. The River Plume Workflow focuses on the impact of riverine flood events on the marine environment. The SMART Monitoring Workflow enables scientists to determine the most suitable time and location for event driven ad-hoc monitoring in hydrology.

This concept of "thinking in workflows" also found application in various of the Digital Earth Application Cases.

Our Digital Earth workflow concept and software frameworks allow scientists to create their own workflows for individual applications. It also provides pre-defined workflows scientists can execute to view the results in real-time. An example is the Digital Earth Flood Event Explorer. 

The Digital Earth Flood Event Explorer

One objective of Digital Earth is to develop an Event Explorer which allows to investigate events, such as floods, droughts, earthquakes or landslides, from a more holistic perspective across the earth science disciplines and along the whole process chain including event generation, evolution and impact. Floods were the first type of event we have started with. Managing floods and reducing flood risk require to understand the generation and impacts of floods across compartments, and how they are affected by natural and human developments. This understanding can only be achieved by integrating data on physical, biogeochemical, engineering, and human processes. We are developing a Flood Event Explorer based on several analytical workflows to investigate floods; a special focus is on the question “What makes a flood event exceptional?”. To learn more about the workflows related to the Flood Event Explorer, check out the figure below: