Department Urban Water Management
INSCRIBE: Advancing Reproducible Research in Urban Drainage with Open Research Data
Welcome to INSCRIBE
Urban drainage systems play a vital role in protecting public health and preventing floods. However, research and management often rely on traditional engineering practices rather than transparent, data-driven methods. INSCRIBE is committed to strengthening reproducible research practices in urban drainage by enhancing data accessibility, standardization, and reusability.
Our Approach
INSCRIBE develops tools and workflows that support FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles, ensuring that research outputs can be easily shared, reproduced, and applied in practice. The project focuses on:
- Developing and testing innovative Open Research Data (ORD) tools.
- Implementing the Renku platform, a collaborative and version-controlled research environment that supports reproducibility.
- Engaging with research communities to promote open data sharing and reproducibility.0
Objectives
- Enhance data discoverability through knowledge graphs and open repositories.
- Develop reproducible research workflows, making legacy studies fully transparent.
- Create a dedicated urban drainage data repository, reducing information fragmentation.
- Foster international collaboration to improve reproducibility standards across the field.
Key Activities
INSCRIBE focuses on four key areas to enhance reproducibility in urban drainage research. Assessing data findability involves reviewing existing knowledge graphs and open data platforms to to evaluate the FAIRness of the datasets and engage community partners to improve research accessibility. Prototyping reproducible research workflows includes replicating historical studies, such as a 20-year-old sewer mixing study, benchmarking hydrodynamic rainfall-runoff models using the Urban Water Observatory (UWO), and evaluating the RENKU platform for collaborative research. We apply FAIR data practices through case studies in sewer mixing, rainfall monitoring, and urban pluvial flooding, collaborating with data-sharing communities. Specifically, we plan to integrate UK sewer mixing datasets to RENKU, migrate rainfall data workflows from the OPENSENSE project and support the International Working Group on Data and Models (IWGDM) in standardizing flood data. Finally, dissemination and outreach activities include organizing workshops and knowledge exchange sessions with the community and industry, as well as training activities to provide researchers with tools for implementing FAIR data practices. We will publish our achievements in peer-reviewed journals and provide open datasets, workflows, and research outputs for broader community use.
…organizing knowledge exchange sessions with the community and industry, workshops and training activities to provide researchers with tools for implementing FAIR data practices, peer review publications and curated open datasets and workflows.
Platforms & Tools
Collaboration
INSCRIBE is a collaborative initiative involving researchers from Eawag, the Swiss Data Science Center (SDSC), and international partners, including the IWA/IAHR Joint Committee on Urban Drainage and the International Working Group on Data and Models (IWGDM).
Impact
By improving research transparency, reproducibility, and accessibility, INSCRIBE aims to reduce duplicated efforts, foster a data-driven culture, and support evidence-based decision-making in urban drainage management.
Resources
We will share links to open datasets, workflows, and workshop materials on this site as the project progresses. Stay informed, get involved, and contribute to the future of reproducible research in urban drainage.
