Research

The CMOP focus is on the integrated development and sustained functionality of SATURN, a collaboratory that provides observation, modeling, and information-delivery capabilities for the Columbia River coastal margin.

The center seeks to understand how physical, chemical, and biological conditions and processes vary naturally, and how they may be modified by changes in climate and human activities.

To accomplish this, the center organizes its research in three themes of Coastal Margin Collaboratories, Coastal Margin Science, and Enabling Technologies.


THEME I: COASTAL MARGIN COLLABORATORIES
Explore and advance (a) what constitutes, (b) how to build, sustain and evolve, and (c) how to create the conditions for the effective use of collaboratories, using the Columbia River collaboratory SATURN as testbed.

THEME II: COASTAL MARGIN SCIENCE
Understand condition, variability and change at the interface of coastal margins with large-scale processes (climate and plate tectonics) and human activities.

THEME III: ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
Develop and demonstrate enabling technologies (modeling, sensors and platforms, and information and visualization) in support of advanced functionality of SATURN and of river-to-ocean observatories in general.