National Flood Interoperability Experiment:

Student Presentations
CUAHSI Webinar
Wednesday, February 18,
2015

Overview
NFIE Program Updates
Dr. Al Valocchi, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign

NFIE in a Nutshell Recap

Fernando Salas, University of Texas at Austin

Student Presentations
Fernando Salas
Emily K. Read
Joseph Gutenson
Nathan R. Swain and Alan D. Snow,
Cassandra Fagan and Madelin Merck,

NFIE PROGRAM UPDATES

Dr. Al Valocchi, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
CUAHSI Chair of the Board of Directors

Eligibility
An issue arose after the last webinar was

presented:
Because the National Water Center is an operational

federal facility, only US Citizens can be accommodated

as residents working in the National Water Center

Eligibility
Solution:
The University of Alabama will host international

participants on site for participation in the

summer institute
Creation of three program categories to

allow eligibility for both citizens and noncitizens

Present or prospective graduate students
and post-docs are eligible to apply

NFIE Summer Institute

Fellows Program
7 week residence in Tuscaloosa June 1

through July 17
Primarily working in the National Water
Center
Open to US Citizens

NFIE Summer Institute

Resident Scholars Program
7 week residence in Tuscaloosa June 1

through July 17
Working at University of Alabama (limited
access to the National Water Center)
Open to International Students

NFIE Summer Institute

Visiting Scholars Program
Visit Tuscaloosa June 1-5 and July 15-17 for

the bootcamp and capstone events

Work under guidance of mentor at home
institution
Participate in weekly webinars
Open to US citizens and International
students

Application Information
Found at www.cuahsi.org/NFIE
Application consists of:
Completed application form
A one page CV
Your transcript
A statement of intent or project

description depending on
program choice
A letter of support from an advisor

Application Information
Combine all documents into a single

pdf and submit to commgr@cuahsi.org

by February 28, 2015
Contact eclark@cuahsi.org with any questions

Dates and Deadlines

February 28 Last day to submit NFIE

Summer Institute Application

March 31 Decision from CUAHSI
Steering Committee issued to applicants
April May Selected applicants will be
formed into project teams
June 1 NFIE Summer Institute begins

National Flood Interoperability

Experiment (NFIE)
NFIE in a Nutshell
Fernando Salas
University of Texas at Austin
18 February 2015

Goal of the Experiment

Close the gap between National Flood
Forecasting and Local Emergency
Response
Demonstrate forecasting of flood impacts
at stream
level
Weather
and Hydrology
Nation and street
al

Loc
al

National Weather Service and federal agencies

National Water Center

River Flooding and Emergency

Response
Local, State and Regional Agencies
Citizens

Assumptions
High spatial resolution hydrologic modeling
at continental scale
Built upon NFIE-Geo: A national geospatial
framework for hydrology
Continental landscape divided into 2.67 million
local catchments, each containing a single
stream reach
Stream reaches connect to form a national
stream2.67
network
million catchments
Average area 3 km2
Average reach length 2 km

NFIE Conceptual Framework

NFIE-Geo:
National
geospatial
framework for
hydrology
NFIE-Hydro:
National high
spatial resolution
hydrologic
forecasting

NFIE-Response:
Wide area
planning for
flood emergency
response

NFIE-River: River
channel
information and
real-time flood
inundation
mapping
NFIE-Services: Web services for flood information

NFIE-Geo for a county.

County
subset of
national
geospatial
data layers

Map courtesy
of Cyndi
Castro
UT Austin

http://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/maidment/CE397Flood/Assignment2/NFIEGeo.pdf

NFIE-Hydro Forecasting
Model
Weather model and forecasts
Probabilistic flood forecasts
Catchmentlevel
forecasts
Weather Precipitation

Streamflow

Runoff

Land-Atmosphere Model

Channel flow routing (for continental US

Flood risk zones

Each catchment has a flood
hazard zone defined from FEMA
flood data
Probabilistic forecast from NFIEHydro defines flood risk
Color the zones according to risk

More comprehensive
solution

NFIE-River: Dynamic flood modeling,

forecasting and inundation mapping in
space and time
Requires LIDAR terrain data so can only
be done for particular regions

North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program

Iowa Flood Information System

Transformative for the

nation
Forecasts produced by
Current system 3600 locations
700 times more
NFIE system 2.67 million locations

New Information to help emergency

managers save lives and keep people
safe Current
Proposed

Flood Emergency
Response
NFIE-Response: Work
with the first response
community to define
flood strategy and
tactics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ympaR6YUxiA&feature=you

NFIE Conceptual Framework

NFIE-Geo:
National
geospatial
framework for
hydrology
NFIE-Hydro:
National high
spatial resolution
hydrologic
forecasting

NFIE-Response:
Wide area
planning for
flood emergency
response

NFIE-River: River
channel
information and
real-time flood
inundation
mapping
NFIE-Services: Web services for flood information

RAPID River Routing Model

River Application for Parallel ComputatIon of Discharge

Muskingum
Method

Sprism = KQ
Swedge = KX (I Q)

Computational Unit for Rivers

Forcing: Runoff and reservoir releases

NHDPlus Catchment

Flow

Legend
Dam
Junction
Catchment

http://rapid-hub.org/

WRF-Hydro Framework

GEOGRID
File
(netCDF)

Elevation

Vegetation

Land use

Soils

Albedo

http://www.ral.ucar.edu/projects/wr

High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR)

NOAA NCEP real-time 3 km resolution model
- Nested WRF model (cloud resolving atmospheric model)
Run hourly/updated 15 min
15 hour forecast
3 km radar assimilation
Initialized by RUC model

Variables of interest:
Temp at 2 m, U and V wind at 2 m, relative and specific
humidity at 2m, precipitation rate, surface pressure,
short-wave radiation

http://ruc.noaa.gov/hrrr/

NFIE-Hydro Automated Workflow

Interdisciplinarity at the
NFIE summer institute
Emily K. Read
USGS Center for Integrated Data Analytics
18 Feb 2015

NFIE Research & Training Objectives

from Maidment et al. 2014 and https://www.cuahsi.org/NFIE
Research
1. How can near-real-time hydrologic simulations at high spatial resolution, covering
the nation, be carried out?
2. How can this lead to improved emergency response and community resilience?
3. How can an improved interoperability framework support the first two goals and
lead to sustained innovation in the research to operations process?
Training
4. Modern information services made available through web services
5. Introduction to hydrometeorologic models such as WRF-Hydro and RAPID
6. Distributed high performance computing environments
7. Best practices in programming and application development

What challenges will NFIE participants face?

from Eigenbrode et al. 2007

Level of integration
Linguistic and conceptual divides
Validation of evidence
Societal context of research
Perceived nature of the world
Reductionistic versus holistic science

Questions for participants to consider

from Eigenbrode et al. 2007
Motivation: Is applied research or basic research more
important to you as a researcher?
Methodology: In your typical disciplinary research, what
methods do you use, and which are most appropriate for your
(hypothetical) collaborative study (e.g., quantitative, qualitative,
experimental, case study, observational, modeling)?
Confirmation: What type and amount of evidence are required
for knowledge in your work?
Objectivity: Must scientific research be objective to be
legitimate?
Values: Is value-neutral scientific research possible?
Reductionism and emergence: Can the world under
investigation be fully reduced to individual, independent
elements for study?

A process for interdisciplinarity

Team science is a collaborative and often crossdisciplinary approach to scientific inquiry that
draws researchers who otherwise work
independently or as co-investigators on smallerscale projects into collaborative centers and
groups.

from Bennett et al. 2010

Team science requires

Communication
Trust
Setting expectations
Dealing with conflict

The National Academy of Sciences note, At the heart of interdisciplinarity is

communicationthe conversations, connections, and combinations that bring
new insights to virtually every kind of scientist and engineer (NAS 2004, 19)

Successful scientific teams

Unambiguously assign or negotiate roles and responsibilities
Recognize differences in worldviews
Identify and manage conflict
Share laughter and opportunities for communication and social
interactions outside of research
Teams must balance meeting the tasks at hand in a timely fashion and
maintaining group cohesion
from Thompson 2009, Bennett et al. 2010, and Cheruvelil et
al. 2014.

A proposed process for interdisciplinary

team science at NFIE summer institute

Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON)

Fellowship Program
Visit fellowship.gleon.org
Workshop agendas
Technical
and team
science
training
materials
Scientific
research
descriptions

References
Bennett, L. M., Gadlin, H., Levine-Finley, S. (2010) Collaboration and Team Science: A Field Guide. Bethesda MD
National Institutes of Health, April 2010, 169. doi:10.1093/her/cyt030
Cheruvelil, K., P. Soranno, K.C. Weathers, P.C. Hanson, S. Goring, C. Filstrup, E. Read. 2014. Creating and
maintaining high-performing collaborative research teams: the importance of diversity and interpersonal skills. Frontiers
in Ecology and the Environment. 14: 31-38.
Eigenbrode, S., ORourke, M., Wulfhorst, J. D., Althoff, D. M., Goldberg, C. S., Merrill, K., Morse, W., Nielsen-Pincus,
M., Stephens, J., Winowiecki, L., Bosque-Prez, N. A. (2007). Employing philosophical dialogue in collaborative
science. BioScience 57: 55-64.
Maidment, D., E. Clark, R. Hooper, A. Ernest. 2014. National Flood Interoperability Experiment (NFIE). Poster GC11C0576 presented at Fall Meeting, American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA.
National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research and Committee on Science
Engineering and Public Policy (NAS). (2004) Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press.
Thompson, J. L. (2009). Building collective communication competence in interdisciplinary research teams. Journal of
Applied Communication Research 37(3): 278-297.

University of Alabama
NFIE Projects
Joseph Gutenson
18 Feb 2015

Issues
Existing nationwide terrain and bathymetric coverage is
insufficient for inundation mapping at a localized scale

2/18/15

About 16% of flood damage locations fell within any of the three zones
identified!
2/18/15

2/18/15

Ongoing Projects at the

University of Alabama
1. NFIE Hydro
1. WRF-Hydro Applications
2. VIC/RAPID Coupling
3. Macroscale Hydrologic Model
Comparison

2. NFIE River
1. LU/LC Impacts on Flood Frequency
2. Channel Geometry Estimation
Methodologies
3. Channel Geomorphology

3. NFIE Response
1. Damage Assessment
2. Economic Consequence Assessment
3. Rule-Based Decision Support Systems

4. NFIE Services
1. Automated conversion of open access
datasets (Middleware)

2/18/15

Investigating the influence of land

use/land cover on flooding inundation and
the resulting economic consequences for
the Mobile Bay watershed
Phase 1

Utilize various land use/land cover and

precipitation scenarios to produce streamflow
estimates for the Mobile Bay watershed.

land use/land cover:

today and 2100
automate land
use/land cover data
extraction with Python
scripting
Visual flood frequency
mapping for different
precipitation scenarios

Phase 2
The economic impacts
on areas likely to be
flooded will be
simulated and the
results will be displayed
visually in GIS.
direct & indirect
economic impacts on:
industry, agriculture,
transportation, etc

Authors: Monica Stone, Angela Pelle, Lian Zhu

2/18/15

Authors: Monica Stone, Angela Pelle, Lian Zhu

2/18/15

2/18/15

Channel Estimation
Map the bathymetry of
unmapped streams
using NHDPlus
Data utilized:
NHD High Resolution
Flowlines
NHD Catchments
Hydraulic Regional Curves

From this map

McCandless,
T. L. (2003). Maryland Stream Survey: Bankfull Discharge and Channel Characte
inundation
at the
of Streams in the Costal Plane Hydrologic Region. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Chesapeak
Field Office, Annapoli
catchment level
Author: Joseph Gutenson

Channel Estimation
Determine hydraulic regional curves for
physiographic regions in Alabama
Using GIS, approximate width, depth, and
cross-sectional area for channels that
have existing cross sections to serve as a
comparison
Compare approximate cross sections to
existing cross sections

Author: Joseph Gutenson

2/18/15

Comparing Macroscale Water Balance

Models (VIC, WRF-Hydro, WBMplus)
Currently, NFIE-Hydro is powered by the
WRF-Hydro model using TACC / Microsoft
Azure infrastructure
University of Alabama students are
testing the Variable Infiltration Capacity
model in conjunction with NFIE-Hydro
inputs

Author: Shawn Carter

2/18/15

Comparing Macroscale Water Balance

Models (VIC, WRF-Hydro, WBMplus)
Proposal

Benefit for Science

Modify WMBplus preparatory

files to accept output from
National Weather Service
forecasts to run on the
University of Alabama RC2
cluster coincident with VIC
and NFIE-Hydro river
forecasting.

WRF-Hydro, VIC, and

WBMplus are frequently
used to model hydrology
and other fluvial phenomena
by the science community.

Compare the three macroscale models in terms of

computational investment,
accuracy, and reliability.

Author: Shawn Carter

There are no side-by-side

comparisons to demonstrate
where each model excels and/or
performs worse than the others.
This exercise should have a
moderately high expectation for
publishable journal articles.

2/18/15

Tethys Platform: Build Web Apps

for Water Resources Decision
Support
Nathan R. Swain
Scott D. Christensen
Alan D. Snow
Jim Nelson
Norm Jones

Apps for Water Resources

Software Suite

Python SDK

European Centre for Medium-Range

Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)
Produce surface and subsurface
runoff from the interaction of
atmospheric and surface processes.

Balsamo, G., Viterbo, P., Beljaars, A., van den

Hurk, B., Hirschi, M., Betts, A. K. and Scipal, K.
(2009), A revised hydrology for the ecmwf
model: Verification from field site to terrestrial
water storage and impact in the integrated
forecast system. J. Hydrometeorol., 10, 623
643.

They produce NetCDF gridded

datasets of weather forecasts for the
entire world up to 15 days in
advance.

Esris Tools: Prepare Temporal Data (i.e.

Downscaling The Forecasts)
Use NHDPlus or
HydroSHEDS to get
watershed
boundaries and
stream network.
The volume in
meters cubed of
each subbasin is
calculated by adding
the area of the
subbasin within each
cell multiplied by the
depth in that cell.

Illustration of ECMWF forecast grid overlaid on

watershed (not to scale)

Processing Workflow
In-stream
Forecasts
152

ECMWF
Forecasts
152

15-Day Flow
by Reach Incremental
(cms)

15-Day Runoff
Depth Cumulative
(m)

Downscale
ECMWF
Forecast to
Watershed

Downscaled
Forecast
152

Weigh
t Table

15-Day Runoff
Volume by
Reach Incremental
(m3)

Run
Forecast
with RAPID

Other RAPID
input Files
for
Watershed

Tethys for ECMWF-RAPID Data Storage

and Computational Power

Tethys for ECMWF-RAPID Visualization

Comparing Forecasts
ECMWF

WRF-Hydro

Other
Forecast

RAPID

Tethys for NFIE

Your
App
Here

Thank You
Nathan Swain
nathan.swain@byu.net
Alan Snow
alan.d.snow@byu.edu
tethys.ci-water.org

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science

Foundation under Grant No. 1135482

NFIE-Response
Presented by Cassandra Fagan & Madeline Merck

Source: http://www.graysonrecovery.com/

Project Focus: NFIE-Response

NFIE-Geo:
National
geospatial
framework for
hydrology

NFIE-Response:
Wide area
planning for
flood emergency
response

NFIE-Hydro:
National high
spatial resolution
hydrologic
forecasting

NFIE-River: River
channel
information and
real-time flood
inundation
mapping
NFIE-Services: Web services for flood information

Source: David

Connecting NFIE-River to NFIEResponse

Real time inundation

Maps & Water Surface
Elevations

Probabilistic Flood
Forecasts

NFIE-River

Source: GLOFAS

Source: NOAA

NFIEResponse

NFIE-Geo for Travis and Cache Counties

NFIE-Geo
NFIE-Geo
database:
database:
Subwatershed
Subwatershed
ss
Catchments
Catchments
Flowlines
Flowlines
Stream
Stream Gages
Gages
Dams

NFIE-Response Database: Cache

County
starting from existing data
Additional
Additional
Layers:
Layers:
FEMA
FEMA
Floodplain
Floodplain
Address
Address Points
Points
Transportation
Transportation
Network
Network
Census
Census Data
Data

Intersection of Rivers, Roads, &

Warning Layer

Identifying
vulnerable
infrastructure
and
communities

Intersection of Roads and Address

Points
with Rivers and FEMA Floodplains
Vulnerable
Vulnerable
People
People and
and
Infrastructure
Infrastructure

Vulnerable
Vulnerable
Roads
Roads

LiDAR Data for Austin and Logan

End Goal of the Project

and possible side projects
NFIE-Response Database:
Existing
Existing Data
Data

NFIE
NFIE Geo
Geo (HydroShare)
(HydroShare)

FEMA
FEMA inundation
inundation maps
maps

Address
Address Points
Points

Transportation
Transportation Network
Network

Census
Census Data
Data
New
New Data
Data (Future
(Future Work)
Work)

Detailed
Detailed Roads
Roads Layer
Layer

Real-Time
Real-Time Inundation
Inundation Maps
Maps

Case Study Comparison:

What
What was
was learned?
learned?

What
What did
did (not)
(not) work
work

Did
Did emergency
emergency response
response
protocols
protocols affect
affect the
the
approach
approach

Online Tool/App:

Interactive
Interactive NFIE-Response
NFIE-Response Map:
Map:

Turn
Turn layers
layers on/off
on/off

Searchable
Searchable

Next NFIE Webinar:

Wednesday, March 4 at 3:00 pm ET
Iowa Flood Information System
Witek Krajewski, University of Iowa

Questions?