Using state-of-the-art grid technology, scientists at NCHC established a cyberinfrastructure for ecological research, the Ecogrid, which integrates geographically distributed sensors, computing power, and storage resources into a uniform and secure platform. Ecologists can conduct researches on this platform, including data acquisition, data analysis, and data sharing. The real time intervention capability of the Ecogrid system allows researchers to carry out interactive/control experiments that have been impossible until now.
Global Lake Observatories Network
With the support from PRAGMA, Ecogrid is now extended to international. By the cooperation with scientists from Center for Limnology of University of Wisconsin, San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC), and Center for Biodiversity of Academia Sinica, we deployed a lake observatories network connected LTER Trout Lake station in Wisconsin and TERN Yuan Yang Lake Station in Taiwan in April 2004. Through the ubiquitous web interface, scientists can easily access and compare data from both research stations in near real-time. The pioneer network was used as an example to call for broader partnership when scientists gathered at Scripp Institute of Oceanography in March, 2005 to discuss next move upon the global network.Underwater Reef Monitoring
Coral reefs are precious because they are the most biologically diverse and productive marine ecosystems on earth. In addition, revenue from tourists attracted to the beauty of coral reefs can be a significant source of income for human communities in these areas. Because of the important ecological and economic roles coral reef communities fulfill, resources are pulling in to study the stresses and dangers to the reefs.With the funding from Taipower, NCHC Ecogrid team worked together with Research for Biodiversity Center, Academic Sinica implemented an underwater reef monitoring system. The system composed with 9 cameras, located at 3 sites, lively streaming bioactivities undergoing in reef communities to marine scientists' desktop.
With the help of this monitoring system, scientists found many interesting behaviors of reef fishes they never discovered before.
Agriculture Grid
To promote Taiwan's agriculture output value, the Council of Agriculture (COA) started a pilot project to construct VIPS (virtually identified produce system), detailed records of farming process, for farm products, rice in Hwa-Liang County and potatos in Yun-Lin County were picked as show cases.NCHC Ecogrid team provided the technology to deploy field sensors to collect farm field environmental data and real time monitoring video. These collected data was streammed into database in NCHC, consumers can query by a specified id code to learn where this one set of product from and how was it grew.