Collaboration and the CI-WATER Hydrologic Modeling Workshop

In science, collaboration takes a variety of forms through partnerships, information sharing and cooperative projects. The CI-WATER Hydrologic Modeling Workshop, held July 22-26 at the University of Wyoming (UW), tapped into all of these forms of collaboration, through the building of new partnerships, the utilization of collaboratively created modeling systems, and the application of new information into group projects.

“We had five students from JSU, one from Utah State University and three from here, at UW,” says Dr. Fred Ogden, the lead principal investigator for UW on the CI-WATER project, who facilitated the workshop.

CI-WATER is a collaborative grant between UW, Utah StateUniversity (USU), Brigham Young University (BYU) and University of Utah (UU). During the workshop, partnerships and friendship between the universities began to develop as participants learned how to use spatial hydrologic tools.

“The CI-WATER high performance computer model is still under development, so we decided to use GSSHA, which is the model I helped develop with the Army Corps of Engineers based in Vicksburg, Mississippi,” Dr. Ogden says.

GSSHA, the Gridded Surface Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis Model, is similar to the model CI-WATER is developing. Spatial hydrologic tools, like the GSSHA model, can be used to mitigate flooding and understand the impacts of changes in land use.

“We’re teaching them how to run a state of the art hydrologic model,” says Dr. Ogden.

Participants started out learning the model in small group projects.

“We started out with a little watershed,” says Sam Rhoads, a civil engineering major from JSU. “Then we added in residential land-use, industrial land-use and learned how to add different hydrologic structures so we could get a feel for everything to do with the model.”

After learning the basics of the tool, Dr. Ogden decided to introduce a bit of what he calls ‘reality’ to their projects by taking them out of the computer lab and into the field to use a rainfall simulator.

“Basically it can simulate rainfall on a plot of land,” says Sam. “From that, you can measure a lot more accurately than just taking numbers from a table. You can get actual data for the soil property, like the infiltration of the soil, the hydraulic conductivity and how the water is going to flow through the soil so you can use that in the model. That way, you get more accurate output.”

“I think the rain simulator was probably an eye opener,” says Dr. Ogden.

The field day definitely made an impression on one of the participants.

“I liked going to the field,” says Jeremiah Lewis, an industrial engineering major from JSU. Seeing water in action made a clearer connection between the workshop projects and reality.

For another participant, Ashlee Ingram, applying real data to the model and learning about the water aspect of civil engineering were invaluable.

“I like learning different aspects of civil engineering,” she says. “It is good to know different programs. It kind of puts you ahead of other people.”

For the participants in the workshop, knowing GSSHA may do just that.

“The Army Corps in Vicksburg, Mississippi are eager to interact with these students,” Dr. Ogden says. “They asked me to have the students contact them when they’re done because we’re training them on GSSHA and that’s a skill they are always looking for people to have.”

As the workshop came to a close, participants headed home not only with new skills in watershed modeling, but also with more insight into working on group projects and the value of collaboration in science.

By: Kali S. McCrackin

Research Experience for Undergraduate Students Begins

The western United States is rampant with water issues, especially as wildfires dominate most of the summer months. To help understand water systems and ensure strong water-management plans, CI-WATER researchers are developing models. On Monday, some of these researchers will begin a month-long course with undergraduate students to teach them the importance of modeling and how models can make a difference in the future of water in the West.

The Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) begins June 17 at the University of Wyoming (UW) and will focus on high performance computing and watershed modeling. Through lectures and hands-on research students will solve complex computational science problems, learn to work in team research situations and improve programming skills. An optional, week-long course on watershed modeling systems will follow REU.

This year, REU is being led by Dr. Fred Ogden, a professor in Civil Engineering at UW, and Dr. Craig Douglas, a professor of Mathematics at the UW. Both Dr. Ogden and Dr. Douglas are researchers on the CI-WATER grant.

By Kali S. McCrackin 

CI-WATER and the Supercomputer

The Colorado River Basin

The Colorado River Basin is a magnificent water system that stretches from Wyoming all the way to California. It touches seven states in the western US, including huge expanses of Colorado, Utah and Arizona. Almost 30 million people depend on and use the Basin for water. Headwater states, like Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, have to ensure that Lower Basin States receive their obligated water allotment, as described in the 1922 Colorado River Basin Compact. The problem is, western states are experiencing expanding populations with increasing demand for urban and agricultural water use. Population expansion in the Upper Basin States will not only add to the strain on the Basin’s water resources, it may also strain inter-state relationships as it becomes harder for them to meet the water obligations to Lower Basin States described in the Compact. Fortunately for the west, researchers are already looking at these issues, and they’re doing so with the help of the NSF EPSCoR grant called CI-Water.

The CI-Water grant is a three year award shared between the University of Wyoming, Brigham Young University, the University of Utah and Utah State University. Together, the four universities, among other projects, are working to address and avert the problems looming for the Colorado River Basin by mapping, modeling and creating the tools to better understand the Basin. Dr. Fred Ogden and Dr. Craig Douglas of UW are taking the lead on mapping and modeling the Basin.

NWSC off of I-80 west of Cheyenne, WY.

Mapping and modeling require significant computer power and memory. Most computers however, do not allow for the resolution and accuracy that Dr. Ogden and Dr. Douglas are looking for in their models. In order to achieve the scale they’re looking for, they need a supercomputer that can perform calculations at fast speeds, render data into models and provide a resolution vastly higher than what is currently available. It just so happens that Wyoming has such a computer, as of October 15^th, 2012.

For seven years, Wyoming and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), with support from the National Science Foundation, have been planning and working towards building a supercomputing facility. This month, the years of planning and work came to an end with the opening of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC). The $74 million center houses the $30 million supercomputer, Yellowstone, which Dr. Ogden and Dr. Craig will use to model the Colorado River Basin.

Yellowstone is ranked in the top 25 list of fastest computers on Earth. It can perform 15 quadrillion (that is, 15,000,000,000,000,000) basic calculations per second. This is equivalent to everyone on the planet conducting 200,000 calculations per second simultaneously. Yellowstone can also store 11 petabytes of data, which is approximately equal to the total amount of data stored at the Library of Congress. This supercomputer opens the doors of opportunity for Wyoming researchers by giving them a tool that they have not previously had access to. It will put them on the cutting edge of science, especially regarding the environment.

Yellowstone, the supercomputer housed at NWSC.

For Dr. Ogden and Dr. Douglas, Yellowstone’s ability to synthesize large, varied data sets in a relatively short amount of time and produce accurate, usable models of the real world make all the difference in the world for their research. These models will be more complex and at a resolution 100 times higher than models produced on regular computers, which means that they will help inform policies and management decisions with more accuracy than before. The models produced by Yellowstone will be used by CI-Water to understand how population changes and water management are impacting the basin, what that means for the future of water in the west, and how we can begin planning, so that twenty years from now there is still enough water for everyone. These models and data will be an important part of the second annual CI-Water Symposium as the four universities look towards sharing information with stakeholders and decision makers, so that better plans for the future are possible.

For more information about water in the west and UW’s research in this area, visit http://youtu.be/63zWXBKQR5E.

For more information about Yellowstone, NWSC and a virtual tour, visit http://nwsc.ucar.edu/ and http://nwsc.ucar.edu/facility/visit. Or, visit http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/index.html for more in-depth stories about the Yellowstone supercomputer, NWSC and UW researchers.

NWSC also has a visitor center with hands-on displays and activities, which is open from 8-5 Monday through Friday and 8-4 on Saturday. The center is located 5 miles west of Cheyenne, WY off of I-80.

By Kali S. McCrackin
Photos courtesy of http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Ce-Cr/Colorado-River-Basin.html, the University of Wyoming, UCAR