Western North Carolina’s ability to respond to floods and other environmental disasters got a significant boost today with the announcement of a new partnership between UNC Asheville and the Renaissance Computing Institute, a state-funded Chapel Hill venture specializing in computing, networking and data technology.

The partnership, which takes the form of the RENCI at UNC Asheville engagement site, also promises ample research opportunities for college students and their professors, as well as benefits for the Asheville area’s newest economic sector – environmental research and high-end computing.

RENCI at UNC Asheville’s initial project will be to develop current 3-D weather models for disaster planning and response in Western North Carolina, which has a long history of devastating floods and mudslides. When completed, the models will be put to use by city and county planners, emergency responders, educators, and others.

RENCI’s selection of UNC Asheville, along with East Carolina University, as its first two engagement sites, represents the next step in creating a statewide virtual organization that will bring leading-edge technology, high-end computing, and university and community expertise to bear on regional and statewide issues.  

“UNC Asheville’s partnership with RENCI provides the high-end computing resources and infrastructure that will enable us to address important environmental problems threatening our region and other regions of the state,” said UNC Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder. “Of equal benefit is the opportunity this collaboration presents to further develop a new economic sector organized around environmental research and planning, one in which our faculty and students are already at work.”

RENCI at UNC Asheville is the result of a strong community collaboration between UNC Asheville through its National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, the City of Asheville and Buncombe County, all working together under the umbrella of the HUB economic development initiative.

One of the goals of the HUB initiative is the creation of jobs related to technology, and those who have worked to bring RENCI to Asheville believe the engagement site will not only create new jobs, but opportunities for contract work, collaborations with area companies, and new business and technology ventures.

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is among the key institutions gratified that Asheville has been selected as a new RENCI engagement site.

“This is indeed a major milestone for Western North Carolina,” said NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center Director Thomas Karl. “We look forward to advancing these efforts.”

The engagement site, to be called the RENCI at UNC Asheville Applied Visualization Lab, will be located at A-B Tech’s Tech Enka Campus. The Applied Visualization Lab, to be housed in a portion of the Haynes Corporate Technology Center, will include a unique visualization wall and immersive dome to facilitate the collaboration between scientists, technologists and applied visualization experts.  

“We are very excited about the RENCI engagement site coming to the Asheville area and A-B Tech’s role in this partnership,” said Max Queen, A-B Tech’s vice president of continuing education. “It’s a very appropriate site for RENCI given the fact we’re working with the Media Arts Project and other technology experts in the Asheville and Buncombe County area who will be able to support these data visualization efforts.” 

Turning massive amounts of data into visual models available for city and county officials, planners and emergency responders is at the core of the project. To create effective 3-D models or visual what-if scenarios, the project team will combine the geographic information systems (GIS) data and digital elevations models from Asheville and Buncombe County planners, the National Climatic Data Center’s historic and real-time weather and climate data, and FEMA’s historical flood data, said Jim Fox, NEMAC’s director of operations.  

The project offers significant research opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in the fields of environmental studies, computing, multimedia arts and sciences, education, geographical information systems, and environmental economics, he said.

For more information on RENCI at UNC Asheville, call UNC Asheville’s Public Information Office at 828/251-6526 or go to www.renci.org/about/asheville.php.