Introduction

David R. Maidment, Ph.D.

Director and Professor

 Center for Research in Water Resources, University of Texas at Austin

This year's edition of the GIS Hydro CD-ROM is the seventh in the series that we've produced annually since 1997 for distribution to the participants in the GIS Hydro seminar at the ESRI User Conference.   This CD-ROM has some features similar to its predecessors, namely the digital Classroom where we present the exercises used during my GIS in Water Resources graduate course in Fall 2002, and the term papers produced by students in that course, and the digital Library where we present digital copies of reports and theses of research pertaining to the application of GIS in Water Resources.  This year's CD-ROM has four sections, the first of which contains the regularly appearing information, and the remainder reporting on new lines of research and development for this year:

• Introduction -- this section contains this introduction, the digital classroom and library and copies of powerpoint presentations illustrating various subjects contained on the CD-ROM.
• Arc Hydro -- this section provides links to the new Arc Hydro Online Support System, provides an updated Arc Hydro toolset version 1.1 beta 2, that works better with ArcView and fixes bugs that were found in version 1.0 of the toolset.   This section also contains expositions on the first steps in developing a groundwater data model and on geospatial representation of the 3-D morphology of river channels.
• Applications -- this section describes ongoing research at CRWR into the applications of Arc Hydro, including the execution of hydrologic models from the Arc Hydro schematic network, the use of the prototype Arc 9 Model Builder to construct water quality models, the development of a regionalized geodatabase of the Rio Grande basin, and a system for linking Arc Hydro with LibHydro, a package of hydrologic simulation routines drawn from the HEC-1 model.  This work is based on using the Arc 9 Toolbox and Model Builder, for which we have been using prototype versions that run on top of ArcGIS 8.3.  
• Interface Data Models -- this section documents a new development in our research, which is the design of interface data models that link the ArcGIS geodatabase with external hydrologic models.   These interface data models facilitate the exchange of information with external models, and they may be internally connected through Arc Hydro so as to enable the exchange of information such as flow time series between the models.   Our main focus of work in this area has been on HEC-HMS, HEC-RAS and on the Water Rights Analysis Package (WRAP) which is used for water availability studies in Texas.

It is always exciting for me to use this CD-ROM to summarize the results of our CRWR research program for the past year.   What has been impressive to me during this year is the way that we've been able to gain experience in using time series and hydrologic models linked by Arc Hydro.  We are making the conjunction of geospatial and temporal water resources data with hydrologic models a reality and not just a theoretical conception.  I could see these developments in prospect last year, but now we have a considerable volume of actual operating experience, and experience is always a great teacher.  Our work on time series has been materially assisted by collaboration with the DHI -- Water and Environment, who are producing a time series package that will work with Arc Hydro, and our work with the HEC-HMS and HEC-RAS models has been significantly assisted by collaboration with the US Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center.

There are many people whom I'd like to thank for help in producing this CD-ROM.  First among them  is Jon Goodall, the CRWR graduate student who managed the assembly of the materials on this year's CD-ROM.  Other students whose work is presented here include Hema Gopalan, Venkatesh Merwade, Imane Mrini, Dan Obenour, Carlos Patino, Oscar Robayo, Gil Strassberg, Masatsugu Takamatsu, Tim Whiteaker, and Reem Jihan Zoun.   I want also to acknowledge the contribution to the Arc Hydro effort by Dean Djokic, Steve Grise, and their colleagues at ESRI Redlands, who have been continuously supportive of the advancements we have been making.

I hope you find the information on this CD-ROM helpful in your work.  

David R. Maidment
Engineering Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering
Director, Center for Research in Water Resources
The University of Texas at Austin
maidment@mail.utexas.edu
http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/maidment/home.html

These materials may be used for study, research, and education, but please credit the authors and the Center for Research in Water Resources, The University of Texas at Austin. All commercial rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Center for Research in Water Resources.