Center for Research in Water Resources, University of Texas at Austin
This is our second attempt to synthesize in a digital form a picture of current knowledge of the synthesis of GIS and hydrology. In the Introduction to GIS Hydro '97, I explained how our research and teaching program in this field originated and described the basic structure of the CD-ROM. I went to some pains to point out the limitations of what we presented on the CD-ROM since it is the product of a research effort largely created by graduate students as part of their education and it was not intended to function as a supported software system for GIS Hydrology. It turned out that my concerns in this regard were larger than the subsequent experience showed was necessary. Last year, 1000 copies of the GIS Hydro '97 were manufactured and they are now dispersed world-wide. For the most part, those who've used GIS Hydro '97 seem to have found it a useful source of information and we received few questions that revealed bugs or errors in the information contained in the CD. I hope that same record of effectiveness is maintained this year, in which we used essentially the same method of preparation as last year, namely to have a lead person preparing each module and then a checker to verify the materials are satisfactory. The principal person responsible for the assembly of the materials on GIS Hydro '98 has been Eric Tate who has been ably assisted by Janet Winkler, a visiting exchange student from Dresden, Germany.
Whats New with GIS Hydro '98?
(1) New Contributors
There are number of exciting developments with GIS Hydro '98. First, I want to
welcome two new partners who have contributed material to the CD-ROM: the Danish
Hydraulic Institute and the EPA Office of Water.
Danish Hydraulic Institute: Mike-11, Mike Basin, Mike-SHE, Mouse
The Danish Hydraulic Institute in Copenhagen has recently established a closer relationship with ESRI and I was privileged on several occasions this year to visit with DHI professionals about their growing capabilities in linking GIS with their water modeling software. In particular, in this CD, the DHI module describes four programs: Mike-11 for flood management, Mike-Basin for river basin management, Mike-SHE for studies of the hydrologic cycle, and Mouse GIS for urban drainage. All of these programs are linked to ArcView. Mike-11 is DHI's surface water simulation program for rivers that describes the flow and water surface elevation in river sections. In US terms, this model is something like a combination of HEC-1 and HEC-2 for flood discharge and water surface elevation computation.. A versatile program indeed! Mike-Basin is a tool for water resources planning which uses monthly streamflow data and simulation routines to help plan water supply and reservoir systems. The CD describes a number of extensions of Mike Basin dealing with digital terrain processing, water quality analysis, and erosion computation. It is evident that DHI is quickly expanding the ability to process geospatial data with Mike Basin. Mike-SHE is an integrated surface and groundwater model which uses a gridded system for tracing water movement dynamically through the phases of the hydrologic cycle. Mouse is DHI's program for the simulation of surface runoff, flows, water quality and sediment transport in urban catchments and sewer systems. The program can be applied to pipe networks with alternating free surface and pressurised flows. The DHI module features many demonstration graphics and some videos showing the evolution of hydrologic conditions in time and space.
EPA Office of Water: Basins
One of the exciting events in GIS Hydrology this year in the US was the release by the EPA Office of Water of the Basins simulation program, which links ArcView with HSPF, QUAL2E, and TOXIROUTE. HSPF is a surface water hydrology model and QUAL2E is a instream water quality model, both supported by the EPA Center for Exposure Assessment Modeling in Athens, Georgia. What was immediately impressive to me was the large array of supporting data that came along with Basins such that it is possible for a user to go right ahead and apply the models without first assembling a spatial database. The EPA Office of Water is distributing Basins via its web site and also via CD-ROM with data packaged for each of the EPA Region in the US. The data on the web site are packaged by State. In addition, as part of our educational program in Water Quality here at the University of Texas, directed by Dr Neal Armstrong, a set of three exercises were prepared illustrating how to use Basins. These exercises were adapted for classroom use from similar exercises originally prepared by the EPA. You can find them in the Basins module, along with an extensive slide presentation prepared by Andrew Battin of the EPA Office of Water which describes the development and application of Basins.
(2) New Information
Updated Digital Classroom
This Spring, I taught my GIS in Water Resources course for the 8th time and all the course lessons were updated to reflect new capabilities of ArcView and some new material. Entirely new are Exercise 2 dealing with CRWR-PrePro, our watershed delineation and hydrologic model data preparation system, and Exercise 7 dealing with Environmental Mapping by linking tabular data in MS Access with ArcView. This latter exercise arises from an innovative research project we are doing with the Environmental Remediation Managment office of British Petroleum. The Digital Classroom contains a set of 19 term papers produced in my GIS in Water Resources class which show various applications of GIS to water and environmental problems which my students have accomplished. I'm very proud of all the fine work they do!
Virtual Campus Courses
Another exciting development is that ESRI is presently developing a series of Spatial Hydrology courses on the ESRI Virtual Campus. These courses, based on the material from my GIS in Water Resources class provide a structured way for you to learn how to apply GIS to hydrology in a self-learning mode. These Virtual Campus courses were written by Ye Maggie Ruan, who graduated from our program in December 1997 and who now works with the ESRI Education and Training group in Redlands, CA. Thanks Maggie!
More Reports in the Digital Library
Our digital library has been expanded to a total of 16 online reports with new theses and dissertations completed during the past year and presented in Adobe pdf format. Get all the exciting details of our latest research!
Expanded Digital Atlas
Last year, we included our Digital Atlas of the World Water Balance with exercises in English, French and Spanish on how to use it. This year, we've added exercises prepared by Dr Nabil Eid in Portuguese showing application of the atlas in the Amazon Region of Brazil, and additional exercises prepared by Kwabena Asante in English on applications in East Africa, together with instructions on how to use the Digital Chart of the World. An article about the Digital Atlas was recently published by the Water Science and Technology Board of the US National Research Council. In addition, we've compiled a separate Spatial Hydrology Database of the United States, not contained on this CD-ROM, which is designed to support GIS hydrology applications in the US. There is also available on this CD a special set of instructions prepared by Kevin Wei on the use of the ArcView Internet Map Server.
More from BYU
The BYU module from the Engineering Computer Graphics Laboratory, Brigham Young University, contains an update on the WMS (Watershed Modeling System) and GMS (Groundwater Modeling System) systems which were described in GIS Hydro '97. In addition, new material is presented this year on SMS, the Surface Water Modeling System from BYU, which is used to represent two-dimensional flow in rivers, bays and estuaries. These popular programs now have an improved Map Module linking them to ArcView. This module was prepared by Dr Norman Jones, Dr Jim Nelson and Dr Alan Zundel of the Dept of Civil Engineering of BYU.
Updated Analysis Modules from CRWR
There were 8 analysis modules on GIS Hydro '97 produced by CRWR, and these have been condensed to 5 modules on GIS Hydro '98. Watershed Characterization, prepared by Seth Ahrens and Dr Francisco Olivera deals with terrain processing and hydrologic model preprocessing. Soil-Atmosphere, prepared by Seann Reed, deals with the vertical linkage between the land surface and the atmosphere. Runoff, prepared by Ben Bigelow and Dr Francisco Olivera, deals with the horizontal movement of water through the landscape as as watershed runoff and streamflow. Water Quality , prepared by Patrice Melancon, Ann Quenzer and Brad Hudgens, deals with determination of pollution loads and concentrations in receiving waters. The Water Quality module contains detailed reports on water quality studies which we've completed this year for the City of Austin's Water Quality Master Planning process and for the Corpus Christi Bay National Estuary Program. The A new module this year, Hydraulics, has been prepared by Eric Tate to show how flood water elevations can be translated into maps of flood plain delineation. This module contains a special component called AVRAS prepared by Dr Dean Djokic and Dr Zichuan Ye of the ESRI Applications Programming section at ESRI, Redlands. Both Dean and Zichuan are also graduates of our program.
Ok, well, that is for now. I hope you have fun with GIS Hydro '98 and find it a useful digital compilation of knowledge to help you with your work and learning about GIS Hydrology.
David R. Maidment
Ashley H. Priddy Centennial Professor of 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
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 1998 Center for Research in Water Resources.