UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC) was established in November 2003 with the vision to become a national center for the modeling and analysis of environmental data. The Center provides coordination of advanced and applied research projects, and operates as an information center regarding funding and collaborative opportunities for joint research efforts.
NEMAC conducts advanced and applied environmental modeling research and fosters technology development. This is done through collaborations with academic, governmental, commercial, and non-profit organizations. NEMAC provides visualization, modeling research and data mining that impacts education, health, technology and the economy locally and nationally.
The scope of NEMAC’s environmental modeling research includes: climate change, energy efficiency and renewable energy, geographic information systems, ecosystem measurements, health and safety statistics, and air quality.NEMAC is currently working with a number of partners including: US Forest Service, US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Energy, UNC Office of the President, National Climatic Data Center, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, Appalachian State University, Baron Advanced Meteorological Systems, AdvantageWest, Education & Research Services, Education & Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas, National Climatic Data Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Program, and UNC Charlotte.
An important goal for NEMAC is working in collaboration with others to predict and respond to severe weather events. To this end, NEMAC devoted its most recent annual workshop to improving responses to regional storm events.
NEMAC’s first award of $1.3 million, the largest in University history, was granted by the Education & Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas with federal funds provided by the Library of Congress. The project developed the infrastructure for the commercialization of current and future environmental data that reside at the National Climatic Data Center here in Asheville, NC .
To date, NEMAC has received in excess of $4 million in grant monies.
