North Carolina ranks in the top five states for the number of billion dollar climate and weather related disasters to affect the state, with 26-30 events occurring from 1980-2007¹. Because of this high incidence of disaster events, the ability to adequately sense the environment is critical to many local, state, federal, and university organizations in the state. Through these organizations, a large number of sensors have been deployed in North Carolina. However, many organizations may not be aware of the sensors that have been deployed by other organizations, leading to issues such as duplicate sensor deployments in a common area.

In order to address the challenges in sharing and accessing data and to better understand the current state of environmental sensors in North Carolina, the Renaissance Computing Institute² (RENCI), the State Climate Office of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management will be hosting a one-day, statewide sensor workshop this winter in Chapel Hill, NC. The goal of this workshop is to bring local, state and federal organizations as well as universities together to discuss the current state of sensors in North Carolina, future sensor needs, and to make participants aware of other sensor networks to encourage collaboration.

In preparation for this workshop, we have created an inventory of sensor networks across North Carolina. This paper will discuss how this inventory was created, the content of the inventory, and the next steps in addressing sensor data challenges in North Carolina, including plans for the development of a web-based tool to access all sensor data.

It is anticipated that the outcome of this workshop will make the North Carolina sensor community more aware of sensor data in the state by providing an inventory of available data and how it can be accessed. In addition, this workshop will lay the foundation for the accumulation of data across the state, leading to an unprecedented organization and accessibility of data in North Carolina.

¹National Climatic Data Center report: Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters, 1980-2007, available http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/reports/billion/billionz-2007.pdf

² RENCI is a North Carolina state organization that is a joint venture of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and Duke University. RENCI works to use technology to solve multidisciplinary problems in North Carolina.