Abstract
The grand challenge for the 21$^{st$ century is to harness knowledge of the earth`s biological and ecological diversity to understand how they shape global environmental systems. This insight benefits both science and society. Biological and ecological data are among the most diverse and complex in the scientific realm. spanning vast temporal and spatial scales, distant localities. and multiple disciplines. Environmental informatics is an emerging discipline applying information science, ecology, and biodiversity to the understanding and solution of environmental problems. In this paper we give an overview of the experiences of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) with this new multidisciplinary science, discuss the application of computing resources to the study of environmental systems, and outline strategic partnership activities in environmental iformatics that are underway, We hope to foster interactions between ecology, biodiversity, and conservation researchers in East Asia-Pacific Rim and those at SDSC and the Partnership for Biodiversity Informatics.