Authors: Carlos Erazo, Yusuf Sermet, Ibrahim Demir, University of Iowa
Title: HydroLang Compute Framework: A Suite of Libraries for Client-Side Hydrological Analyses
Abstract: In recent years, the demand for web-based applications in environmental sciences has surged. This trend can be attributed to the rapid advancements in computational capabilities of web systems across various platforms and devices. In particular, client-side technologies that are powered by web browser engines have greatly expanded the capability for large-scale data processing, analysis, and visualization within a sandbox environment. As a result, online resources can now be effectively integrated and utilized for these tasks. With the growing demand for handling larger datasets, complex analyses can now be conducted on client-side environments, which reduces cost and resource challenges on server-side environments. This shift towards more efficient and powerful web-based applications has opened up new opportunities for the environmental sciences and will likely continue to be a major area of development in the years to come. This presentation will showcase a suite of powerful libraries designed specifically for client-side environmental and hydrological analyses. The suite includes HydroLang, a versatile framework suitable for research and education; HydroLang-ML, a web component-based markup language that facilitates semantically-driven programming; and HydroCompute, a high-performance computing library that harnesses parallel computing and lower-level programming languages, enabling large-scale computing tasks on the client-side. These libraries are readily available with open-source access and offer a diverse range of easy-to-use methods, making them highly customizable to fit the specific needs of developers. As the next generation of computational applications for hydrology, these frameworks are poised to revolutionize the field and unlock new possibilities for analysis and understanding of environmental systems.