Title :
Virtual watersheds: simulating the water balance of the Rio Grande Basin
Author :
Winter, C.L. ; Springer, Everett P. ; Costigan, Keeley ; Fasel, Patricia ; Mniewski, Sue ; Zyvoloski, George
Author_Institution :
Los Alamos Nat. Lab., TX, USA
Abstract :
Managers of water resources in arid and semi-arid regions must allocate increasingly variable surface water supplies and limited groundwater resources. This challenge is leading to a new generation of detailed computational models that can link multiple sources to a wide range of demands. Detailed computational models of complex natural-human systems can help decision makers allocate scarce natural resources such as water. This article describes a virtual watershed model, the Los Alamos Distributed Hydrologic System (LADHS), which contains the essential physics of all elements of a regional hydrosphere and allows feedback between them. Unlike real watersheds, researchers can perform experiments on virtual watersheds, produce them relatively cheaply (once a modeling framework is established), and run them faster than real time. Furthermore, physics-based virtual watersheds do not require extensive tuning and are flexible enough to accommodate novel boundary conditions such as land-use change or increased climate variability. Essentially, virtual watersheds help resource managers evaluate the risks of alternatives once uncertainties have been quantified.
Keywords :
computer animation; digital simulation; environmental management; geophysics computing; virtual reality; water resources; LADHS; Los Alamos Distributed Hydrologic System; Rio Grande Basin; arid regions; computational models; decision making; feedback; groundwater resources; natural resources; natural-human systems; physics; physics-based virtual watersheds; regional hydrosphere; risk evaluation; semiarid regions; water balance simulation; water resource management; water supplies; Application software; Atmospheric modeling; Boundary conditions; Computational modeling; Feedback; Physics; Plasma welding; Resource management; Spatial resolution; Water resources;
Journal_Title :
Computing in Science & Engineering
DOI :
10.1109/MCISE.2004.1289305