HydroModeler: A tool for modeling within the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System

Jon Goodall, Assistant ProfessorTony Castronova, Ph.D. Candidate

Mostafa Elag, Ph.D. CandidateBen Felton, B.S. Student

Robert Boykin, B.S. Student

Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringUniversity of South Carolina

CUAHSI Conference on Hydrologic Data and Information SystemsUtah State University - June 22-24, 2011

Data Discovery and Integration

Data Publication Data Analysis and Synthesis

HydroCatalog

HydroDesktopHydroServer

ODM Geo Data

CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System Services-Oriented Architecture

Data Services

Metadata Services Search ServicesWaterML, Other OGC Standards

Information Model and Community Support Infrastructure

HydroModeler

Research Objectives

– To investigate the interface between HIS and hydrologic models

– To create a tool that can be used to support hydrologic science and education

Challenges

– “there is no commonly agreed modelling strategy for the rainfall-runoff process but a variety of options and approaches”

– “it is expected that one hydrologist’s perceptual model will differ from another’s”

– “I gave up making a list of model when I reached a count of 100 more than 20 years ago”

Rainfall-Runoff Modeling: The Primer, Beven, 2001

Our Approach

– Focus on a modeling framework instead of individual models

– Integrate the modeling framework within HIS

– Lower the bar to entry for hydrologists to use and extend the modeling framework

HydroModeler GUI

Model DirectoryExplorer

Model Attributes

Model Configuration

Open Modeling Interface“The OpenMI provides a standard interface, which allows models to exchange data with each other and other modelling tools on a time step by time step basis as they run.”--openmi.org

Metadata

www.openmi.org

The Architecture of a Model Component

Supporting Libraries

InitializePerformTimeStepFinish

config.xml

Input and Output Exchange Items, Time horizon and step, etc.

OpenMIInterface

Data

Procedural Model

CSDMSInterface

Simple Model Wrapper

Web ServiceInterface

Key Advantages of Componentization

– subdivide a complicated task into a set of smaller, more manageable tasks

– minimal restrictions on each component – only interfaces are standardized

– Potential to maintain multiple interfaces for the same core model engine (i.e., support multiple modeling frameworks)

Example Application– Modeling rainfall/runoff

for Coweeta Watershed #18

– HIS Server includes publically available Coweeta data

• Precipitation: daily accumulated

• Air temp: daily min, max, and mean

• Stream discharge: daily average

Coweeta HIS Server

http://river.sdsc.edu/WaterOneFlow/Coweeta/cuahsi_1_1.asmx?WSDL

Coweeta Watershed #18

Watershed #18 Area: 12.48 ha (0.12 km2)650m by 300 m

The Perceptual Model:deciding on the processes

The Conceptual Model:deciding on the equations

The Procedural Model:getting the code to run on a computer

Model Calibration:getting values of parameters

Model Validation:good idea but difficult in practice

DeclareSuccess?

Revise perceptions

Revise equations

Debug code

Revise parametervalues

No

YesRainfall-Runoff Modeling: The Primer, Beven, 2001

Background: Steps in the Hydrologic Modeling Process

Perceptual ModelWhat processes do I think will be dominate for this watershed and my specific study objectives?

Conceptual Model

• Rainfall – Runoff: TOPMODEL (due to my perception about dominate runoff generation processes)

• ET: Hargreaves (due to data availability)– Assume PET = ET for first model run

What mathematical representation should we use to model the dominate processes?

Procedural Model

• Implement components– Hargreaves– TOPMODEL

• Link components into a model

• Include data exchange with HydroDesktop

How can we construct an accurate, well tested procedural model that can be understood and shared with others?

Model Calibration

– Edit component parameters from GUI

– Save output as new “Method” (ODM terminology)

– Automated calibration possible in the future

What should the model parameters be?

Model Validation/EvaluationHow did we do? (If not well, can we easily change assumptions from each of the previous steps to see impact on results?)

• Visual inspection using HydroDesktop Graph View

• Compare different scenario runs to observed data

• Export data as CSV for further analysis in preferred software system

• Calculation of performance metrics from within HydroDesktop possible in the future

Models as Web Services

– Climate model as a service for use in hydrologic models

– Web Processing Services (WPS) that is wrapped as OpenMI component on client side Collaboration with NOAA/ESMF team (Cecelia DeLuca

et al.) and Ricky Rood. University of Michigan,

Hydro Model

Modeling Large, Complex Hydrologic Systems

Collaboration with Marty Humphrey, UVA

HPC Cluster

Azure Compute Instances

Azure Compute Proxies

User creates model on desktop and submits to calibration tool

Job schedule determines if jobs should be run on a local HPC cluster to the cloud (Azure)

Cloud

Open Development Model

• The HydroDesktop Codeplex site includes all source code for HydroModeler and a growing set of model components. We welcome the help of others in the development effort.www.hydrodesktop.org

Summary

• HydroModeler is a framework for linking models and data to support hydrologic education and research.

• Componentization is important for hydrologic modeling because there is “no commonly agreed modelling strategy for the rainfall-runoff process but a variety of options and approaches”

• Open Development is critical for future success of any modeling system because it will rely on the contribution of individuals and groups interested in sharing codes and ideas

Acknowledgments: HIS Project Team and Sponsors

• University of Texas at Austin – David Maidment, Tim Whiteaker, James Seppi, Fernando Salas, Jingqi Dong, Harish Sangireddy

• San Diego Supercomputer Center – Ilya Zaslavsky, David Valentine, Tom Whitenack, Matt Rodriguez

• Utah State University – Jeff Horsburgh, Kim Schreuders, Stephanie Reeder, Edward Wai Tsui, Ravichand Vegiraju, Ketan Patil

• University of South Carolina – Jon Goodall, Anthony Castronova, Mostafa Elag, Ben Felton, Robert Boykin, Sharni Fuller

• Idaho State University – Dan Ames, Ted Dunsford, Jiří Kadlec, Yang Cao, Dinesh Grover

• Drexel University/CUNY – Michael Piasecki• WATERS Network – Testbed Data Managers

• CUAHSI Program Office – Rick Hooper, Yoori Choi, Conrad Matiuk• ESRI – Dean Djokic, Zichuan Ye

Support:EAR 0622374CBET 0846244

CUAHSI

HISSharing hydrologic data

http://his.cuahsi.org/

HydroModeler Workshops– Today from 3:30-5 PM: Using HydroModeler

• how to create and execute the Coweeta example

– Friday 8-9:30 AM: Developing HydroModeler Components • how to create the Hargreaves component from start to finish

– One-on-one help: Thursday from 3:30-5PM

– If you are not able to attend the workshop, you can still work through the tutorials which are available in the HydroModeler help documentation

– Questions? • Jon Goodall goodall@cec.sc.edu

Design Goals

• Key design goals of HydroModeler are – (1) Enable code reuse and easily shared models– (2) Adopt existing standards when possible– (2) Leverage HydroDesktop’s visualization and data

management capabilities.

Component Communication Protocol

Model A

Model B

Model A is dependent on and output produced by Model B

Exchange Item

Models maintain their own “world view”

Models exchange data on each time step

GetValues()