Interoperability of External Point-Process Models Integrated into the

ADHydro Model Architecture

Robert Steinke, Fred Ogden
Department of Civil & Architectural Engineering, University of Wyoming

http://ci-water.org/
Abstract

Our Collaborators

Acknowledgements
This research supported by: EPS-1135483
Collaborative
Research:
CI-WATER,
Cyberinfrastructure to Advance High
Performance Water Resource Modeling.

This method builds upon the Green-Ampt infiltration with Redistribution

(GAR) model and incorporates features from the Talbot-Ogden (T-O)
infiltration and redistribution method in a discretized moisture content
domain.2

Moisture Content

evaporation
direct * dt

snow water equivalent

qsnbot * dt

Glacier flow
No variable for
this quantity

Rain on ground
No variable for
this quantity

Rain on snow
No variable for
this quantity

Evaporation from ground

No variable for this quantity

Rain on canopy
No variable for
this quantity

Rain below canopy

No variable for this
quantity

Snow on canopy
No variable for
this quantity

canopy
liquid
canopy
ice

transpiration
* dt

precipitation * dt *
(1 ice fraction)

soil moisture content

water in aquifer

surface
runoff * dt

baseflow
runoff * dt

The evapo-transpiration module of ADHydro is given precipitation, atmospheric

forcing inputs, and soil moisture conditions and computes evaporation and
transpiration. It is run on each of the mesh elements as a point process and
evapo-transpiration is assumed to be uniform across each element. We have
integrated Noah-MP as the implementation of the ADHydro evapo-transpiration
module. One challenge we have had with integrating Noah-MP is the fact that
Noah-MP has a snow and soil moisture model tightly integrated with its
evapo-transpiration model. We produced the above mass flow diagram of
Noah-MP to allow isolation of the evapo-transpiration effects of Noah-MP. We
have decided to use the Noah-MP snow model so currently the ADHydro
evapo-transpiration module is an evapo-transpiration and snowpack module.
However, we wish to decouple these in the future.

Soil Depth

precpitation * dt

precipitation * dt *
evaporation
ice fraction
canopy * dt

3rd CUAHSI Hydroinformatics Conference

July 15th 2015, Tuscaloosa AL

GARTO

Noah-MP is a land surface model (LSM) ... [containing] a separate vegetation

canopy ... a multi-layer snow pack with liquid water storage and melt/refreeze
capability and a snow-interception model describing loading/unloading,
melt/refreeze capability, and sublimation of canopy-intercepted snow. 1

qsnow * dt

One of the research goals of

CI-WATER is to allow
integration of external
community-supported physics
models into the ADHydro
model architrecture. This
leverages existing validated
code to increase the capability
and accuracy of the overall
ADHydro model. It also allows
external researchers to test
novel physics models for
individual processes in the
context of a holistic
hydrological simulation. Within
ADHydro, certain processes,
such as evapo-transpiration
and 1D infiltration, are modeled
as point-processes that require
no inter-processor
communication when run in a
massively parallel computing
environment. These are
low-hanging fruit for integration
of external models. Two
models have been integrated:
Noah-MP for
evapo-transpiration and
Green-Ampt with Redistribution
plus Talbot-Ogden (GARTO)
for 1D infiltration. An overview
of the integration method plus
lessons learned are presented.

Noah-MP

EPSCoR
EPS 1135483

The infiltration module of ADHydro is given ponded surfacewater depth and

groundwater table depth and computes current infiltration rate and changes in
vadose zone state. It is run on each of the mesh elements as a point process
and infiltration is assumed to be uniform across each element. We have
integrated GARTO as the implementation of the ADHydro infiltration module.
One challenge we have had with integrating GARTO is the fact that
groundwater flows into and out of a mesh element must actually be put into or
taken from the vadose zone state. Part of the solution to this problem was to
consider the groundwater table to be only a pressure condition and not a
presence-of-water condition. For example, if the water table rises that does
not represent an increase of water in the mesh element because it is rising
through ground that is already saturated in the vadose zone. In order to add
groundwater inflows it is necessary to both raise the groundwater table and
add water to the vadose zone state. Likewise for groundwater outflows.
Another challenge is that evaporation and transpiration from the soil must be
taken from the vadose zone state. Both of these situations where water must
be added to or removed from the vadose zone are not represented in the
infiltration model equations. We have had to add functions for these actions
to the ADHydro infiltration module API and provide implementations of those
in the GARTO code.
References
(1) Niu, G.-Y., et al. (2011), The community Noah land surface model with multiparameterization options
(Noah-MP): 1. Model description and evaluation with local-scale measurements. J. Geophys. Res., 116, D12109,
doi: 10.1029/2010JD015139.
(2) Lai, Wencong, et al. (2015), An efficient and guaranteed stable numerical method for continuous modeling of
infiltration and redistribution with a shallow dynamic water table. Water Resources Research, Volume 51, Issue 3,
pp. 1514-1528, doi: 10.1002/2014WR016487.