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Join Dr. Ed Sudicky for a webinar to introduce the key philosophies and concepts of integrated hydrologic modeling using Aquanty’s flagship modeling platform HydroGeoSphere. As the co-founder of Aquanty, principle developer of HydroGeoSphere and a true leader in the field of integrated hydrological modeling, Dr. Sudicky is perfectly positioned to discuss advances that have been made and future areas for research and development with integrated models representing the hydrological processes.
Abstract:
Providing a scientific basis for water management policy, and assessing the physical characteristics underlying hydrologic risk, typically requires watershed-scale assessments that encompass a few hundred km2 at a minimum. However, as an example, water resources for agriculture or resource development often require an understanding of river basin scale processes, which can cover areas up to or greater than 100,000 km2 . Given the recent increase in losses attributed to large-scale extreme climate related events (i.e. overland pluvial flooding, excess moisture, and drought), and the concern that the frequency of these events will progressively increase in response to climate change, there is growing demand for large-scale hydrologic risk assessments. Because of complex nonlinear interactions between climate, surface water, groundwater and soil moisture across large watersheds, robust physically-based 3D integrated hydrologic models provide a holistic means of performing water-related risk assessment for these types of applications. In this presentation I will discuss the results from a series of studies covering a range of scales whereby fully-integrated surface/subsurface water models have been developed using the HydroGeoSphere platform, including its capability to perform real-time 3D forecasting of the entire hydrosphere as driven by an ensemble of weather forecasts and guided by data assimilation using wireless field instruments. Within the platform, hydrologic responses within sub-basins are nested seamlessly within full-basin scale models in order to capture additional details at an increased resolution. These simulations facilitate large-scale spatially-distributed projections of flood, drought, and other water-related risks relevant to, for example, crop production at unprecedented detail, over temporal intervals ranging from days to decades. The basin response can also be used to gain insight into the potential impact of a changing climate on water resource availability from both water quantity and quality prespectives. Results from this work demonstrate that comprehensive physically-based hydrologic simulation platforms are becoming increasingly relevant and feasible tools for addressing global water related challenges.
HydroGeoSphere (HGS) is a three-dimensional control-volume finite element simulator which is designed to simulate the entire terrestrial portion of the hydrologic cycle. It uses a globally-implicit approach to simultaneously solve the 2D diffusive-wave equation and the 3D form of Richards’ equation. HGS also dynamically integrates key components of the hydrologic cycle such as evaporation from bare soil and water bodies, vegetation-dependent transpiration with root uptake, snowmelt and soil freeze/thaw.
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Dr. Sudicky is a full professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo (on the faculty since 1985), and is a Principal of Aquanty Inc. He received his B.A.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering (1977), and M.Sc. (1979) and Ph.D. (1983) degrees in Earth Sciences, all at the University of Waterloo. He is the recipient of a number of international awards and honors for his research contributions that include the National Ground Water Association Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecturer (1994) and M. King Hubbert Award (2007), The Geological Society of America O.E. Meinzer Award (1999), The American Geophysical Union Hydrology Award (2002). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America.