H123-01
An open-source approach to capacity building for hydrogeophysics
Friday, 11 December 2020: 16:04
Virtual
Doug Oldenburg1, Lindsey Justine Heagy2, Seogi Kang3, Devin Cowan4, Joseph Capriotii4, Serenity (Ren) Fan4 and Michael Maxwell4, (1)University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, (2)University of California, Berkeley, Statistics, Berkeley, CA, United States, (3)Stanford University, Department of Geophysics, Stanford, CA, United States, (4)University of British Columbia, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Abstract:
Addressing groundwater problems using hydrogeophysics requires communication about the hydrogeology problem, knowledge about the geophysical instrumentation and software needed to process the data, and a methodology for interpreting the data. When working in low-resource countries it is often possible for outsiders to visit and provide needed background information, but a long-term effect can only be achieved if local stakeholders have the expertise to continue to use the technology. One approach to build this capacity is a Trainer of Trainers model. With such a model, the goal is to enable local engineers and geoscientists to understand and apply new technologies, and ensure that there are sufficient avenues for continued interaction after the project has formally completed. In this talk we share our experience towards achieving this goal within a Geoscientists Without Borders project in Myanmar. We highlight the essential role that the open-source ecosystem has played throughout the 3 stages of the project: (1) course instruction, (2) development of inversion software to convert direct current (DC) resistivity field data into images of the subsurface, and (3) post-project sustainability.
Open-source refers to software, educational material, and data that are made freely available under a license that allows others to reuse, adapt, and contribute to the development of the resources. These are further enhanced by adopting a philosophy of openness & collaborative practices (e.g. working on shared documents or further developing software). For our project we relied on: (a) a web-based repository for slides and videos; (b) Jupyter notebooks and open source software (SimPEG) for teaching concepts of the DC resistivity method and inverting data; (c) a public repository for data and processing to allow results to be reproduced; and (d) case history documents that enables multiple people to collaborate on the same project. Without these resources our impact would have been severely marginalized. Although outcomes for our project focussed on a particular region in Myanmar, our open-source resources are transferable. We hope that sharing our experience and resources will benefit humanitarian efforts in other low-resource regions.
