REINAS is a continuing engineering research and development program with the goal of designing, developing and testing an operational prototype system for data acquisition, data management, and visualization. This system is to support the real-time utilization of advanced instrumentation in environmental science. Advances in continuous time measurements and improved spatial resolution allow the monitoring and understanding environmental phenomena in much greater detail than has previously been possible. The system is also designed to support the retrospective use of integrated environmental data sets.
The project is a multi-year effort of the Baskin Center for Computer Engineering and Information Sciences of the University of California, Santa Cruz, in cooperation with environmental scientists from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and the Center for Ocean Analysis and Prediction (NOAA/COAP).