The SegHidro experience: using the grid to empower a hydro-meteorological scientific network

This paper describes our experience with SegHidro, a project that empowers hydro-meteorological researchers by (i) enabling collaborative work via the coupling of computer models, and (ii) providing access to massive grid-based computer resources. SegHidro researchers are geographically distributed and have different and sometimes complementary backgrounds. They have in common their interest over the Brazilian Northeast, a semi-arid region, where irregular rainfall distribution causes many problems to the population. SegHidro was created out of the need to help decision makers to better manage water resources. It relies on grid computing as the "glue" that sticks together the community resources: data, computing power and human expertise. Our experience has shown that simplicity is key for the adoption of a solution and its success. Thus SegHidro is built over a simple infrastructure in both computation and data