Project and Water News

It’s one thing to make a computer model to forecast water resources. It’s another to make it so people can actually use it. That’s the job of CI-WATER research assistants Nathan Swain and Herman Dolder.

Nathan, a doctoral candidate at Brigham Young University (BYU), is one of the researchers developing software applications for CI-WATER. The apps are being created as plug-ins for CKAN, the Python-based framework for the CI-WATER models. While CKAN is typically used to store data sets, the team is exploring its potential for storing CI-WATER’s algorithms and executable files as well.

The first app, GSSHA Explorer, is named for the watershed model Gridded Surface/Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA, pronounced as GAY-sha), the basis of many of the CI-WATER models. GSSHA Explorer will allow researchers to upload data sets for CI-WATER’s hydrological models.

Herman Dolder, also BYU doctoral student, is working on another way to bring hydrological modeling to people who need it. At the onset of crisis, the computation time needed to run robust models can cost lives. One solution may be to run simulations well before hurricanes and other catastrophes threaten. Crisis managers can then quickly identify the pre-run scenario most like their current conditions and respond accordingly.

The challenge, says Herman, is to predict the scenarios most likely to benefit from this solution. To that end, he has selected seven variables, such as rainfall volume and duration, and has identified preliminary ranges of values for each one. He’s now in the process of testing the concept, with promising preliminary results.

CI-WATER announces the release of two brief videos that feature researchers explaining key aspects of the project: “What is CI-WATER?” provides a three-minute overview and "What is a Model?" addresses the critical relationship between math, hydrological modeling and supercomputers for kids Grade 8 and up.

The videos were inspired by the National Science Foundation’s "Science: Becoming the Messenger" workshops hosted by state EPSCoR offices around the nation, including Utah and Wyoming. Participants practiced using multiple media platforms, including video, to explain complex science projects to a lay audience. The aim is to bridge the gap between researchers and the public.

“Initially, we thought we’d just be giving researchers who couldn’t participate in the NSF workshop some practice and film them with a hand-held camera,” says Jenn Gibbs, a writer and producer for project partner Utah Education Network and member of the CI-WATER Education and Outreach team. “As we moved forward, we realized we couldn’t miss this opportunity to produce a cohesive video on how the various pieces of this complex project fit together.”

Eight one-minute videos featuring junior researchers answering the question “Why a career in STEM?” will be rolled out in the coming months. Like the project explainer videos, the spots will be available for download and viewing from the project website and viewing via You Tube, UEN-TV and Wyoming PBS.

Five early career hydrologic modelers will have the chance to visit Boulder, CO to meet senior scientists and learn about Earth System Modeling, Model Coupling, and Research Opportunities. 

Funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) EarthCube Concept Award grant on Earth System Model Coupling, the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science Inc. (CUAHSI), will be supporting five early career hydrologic modelers to travel to Boulder to meet senior scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR) new WRF Hydro modeling system and the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS).

Accepted applicants will travel to Boulder, CO on November 11^th and 12^th and will have the chance visit and see presentations by NCAR and CSDMS scientists, learn more about EarthCube, discuss the EarthCube roadmap, and communicate with experts about their research and individual projects.

The application deadline is October 25^th. Accepted applicants will be notified by October 31^st . 

If you read about science, sooner or later you’ll encounter the Carl Sagan gem, “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.”

While most of us can agree that certain habits of mind are among science’s greatest contributions to civilization, we shouldn’t overlook the importance of that body of knowledge or the long, slow process of creating it. Take, for example, the Utah Energy Balance Model. What started as one hydrologist’s choice to make his research locally relevant has grown into an essential component of the CI-WATER project.

Twenty years ago, Dr. David Tarboton was a new hire at Utah State University. When his department chair advised him to find a regional angle for his work, the snow above his Logan, Utah campus prompted his next step. With the help of a single master’s student, he began looking at how geographical features such as slopes and the direction they face affect the rate at which snow melts. Over time, more graduate students joined in, and Dave turned his attention to the T.W. Daniels Experimental Forest, a high-elevation hydrologic source area in the Wasatch Cache Mountains.

Now, thanks to years of work and the contributions of numerous research assistants and postdocs, the model—dubbed Utah Energy Balance by a colleague—can forecast snowmelt patterns while accounting for topographical features, climate and vegetation. It can be applied to any area where identifying the timing and duration of melting snowpack is essential to water resource management, such as the Intermountain West. Currently, the model is being adapted to work with other CI-WATER models which, together, will provide water resource managers a new level of forecasting tools.

Yet even with all the labor that’s gone into the model, Dave sees the potential for future improvements.

“In academia we always want to do more research. Sometimes you have to ask, ‘What is the answer today?’ and go with that.”

Which brings us back to Sagan. The scientific body of knowledge is grown by people engaging in a way of thinking that’s often characterized by rigorous logic, the quest for empirical evidence and a zeal for detail that borders on religious. You can see these habits of thought at work throughout the CI-WATER project team. But there’s another habit of thought a PI like Dave needs to have as well to grow his or her work across decades—a sense of balance between the practical and the ideal, the present and the future.

It’s that approach to scientific thinking that can make a work-in-progress useful today while continuing to strive for better answers tomorrow.