The integration and application of the computational grid structure in flood forecast system

The grid technology is the third network current after the traditional Internet and WWW, and could be specified as the third generation of network application. The main topic of the grid technology is to integrate all the resources in the network that include the computing capacity, the storage system, the communication system, software, information, and knowledge. In another word, the grid structure is a huge sharing platform that integrates all kinds of resources from Internet. National Center for High-performance Computing, Taiwan, is the main computing center taking charge of the integration and application of high-performance computing and networking in Taiwan. The grid technology is applied in this article to integrate techniques of network, database, hydrology, fluid mechanics, and related applications. Experts are called together to join the project. The main goal in this study is to build a networked, Web-based, and distributed flood forecast system with the integration of computation grid. Users could access this system simultaneously through Web browser. A plurality of flood forecast projects could be as well managed at the same time. Results of the flood forecast projects would be provided to the Central Disaster Emergency Center and local government units to help process the flood forecast and the exigent disaster-reducing assignments through Internet.