HydroGeoSphere (HGS) and Ground Water Modeling System-- Phase I

Project ID: 3279
Principal Investigator: Lisa Rainger
Research Topic: Water Resource Data Analysis
Funded Fiscal Years: 2008, 2009 and 2010
Keywords: None

Research Question

* Can Environmental Modeling Research Laboratory (Aquaveo) geospatial software and tools be used for HGS?

* What issues need to be addressed?

* What limitations and issues need to be resolved?

* How should integration efforts be prioritized and integrated?

* What steps need to be taken to accomplish integration?

Integration of geospatial tools to support data preparation, model input, and visualization of model output from the HGS model is necessary to support Reclamation's water management in the context of water supply reliability, water quality and ecological health. The fiscal year (FY) 2007 research on the integration of geospatial tools to support model input/output for the HGS has determined that further integration efforts should involve research on integration requirements including Ground water Modeling System (GMS) developed by the Aquaveo.

Need and Benefit

In the management of California State Water Project and the Federal Central Valley Project, there is an increasing emphasis on problems that require conjunctive analyses of surface/subsurface hydrologic and water-quality processes. Major issues of concern to CALFED (five Federal agencies and five California State agencies) include water supply reliability, water quality, ecosystem health, and impact of climate change on California's water resources.

The current widely used model, CALSIM-II, is not appropriate for complex water supply studies and it has been proposed, under a separate proposal, to dynamically link CALSIM-II with a robust HydroGeoSphere (HGS) that depends on meteorological data to drive the hydrologic simulations. HGS provides a fully-integrated accounting of surface and subsurface processes, the linked model will be especially valuable for analyzing different conjunctive use strategies, and their associated impacts on other related issues. This project specifically looks at the need to integrate geospatial technologies and visualization support for the HGS implementation and utilization.

Work proposed in this Science and Technology (S&T) research project builds upon previous research demonstrating the integration of geospatial technologies and visualization to support the application and verification of HGS. Previous research on multiple integrative software visualization packages resulted in the GMS software being a potential integrative tool for HGS. GMS was formerly developed by the Environmental Modeling Research Laboratory at Brigham Young University, but is now developed by Aquaveo LLC in Provo, Utah. Since HGS is a fully-integrated accounting of surface and subsurface processes, it may be necessary to evaluate other Aquaveo software systems as well. Both finite difference and finite element grid generation tools are within or supported by the software packages. The geospatial technology and visualization integration will allow the modelers to develop and interpret model input and results utilizing numerous tools to do so.

The GMS and Aquaveo software packages are widely used and easily available to a wide-range of modelers and technicians. Incorporating HGS into this system can effectively integrate Reclamation's efforts into a widely accepted package and support the efforts to distribute this to many users. A windows interface will provide for a usability that HGS currently does not have at this time. The GMS interface also integrates geologic data and information in the form of cross-section delineation from boreholes. Where the automatic algorithm may be insufficient (unconformous facies, pinching out, lenses, etc) this software package allows the user to manually define cross-sections, which is rather unique in respect to previous research. Support for structured and unstructured grid generation, integrative and definition of hydrogeology data models, incorporation of weather radar data (e.g., next generation radar [NEXRAD]), combination of network common data form (netCDF) and other commonly available data formats are all significant benefits to both HGS and Aquaveo systems.

Research on the process and methods for integrating HGS modeling software into the Aquaveo software would benefit these collaborative efforts and provide Reclamation with a way to distribute this critical software to a larger set of end users. This proposal will only research and evaluate the feasibility of integrating HGS into the Aquaveo software system and develop a report on what steps need to be taken to fully integrate these.

Contributing Partners

Contact the Principal Investigator for information about partners.

Research Products

Please contact research@usbr.gov about research products related to this project.

Return to Research Projects

Last Updated: 6/22/20