r/Hydrology

I’m currently working on some very large models built by another company that the county will be using as a baseline going forward. One of these models has a 2D meshes with over 730,000 cells. I’ve been trying to get it running in version 7.0.1 (built in version 5.0.7) I’ve fixed the various issues but the model kept crashing and giving exit code 157 about 4 to 9 hours into the simulation. My theory was that the problem was a hardware limitation on the RAM. Still, I’ve been making little changes here and there but not seeing much impact until this morning. I needed to check another model and went ahead with another attempt to run the problem model just to see if it did any better. I ran them at the same time on the same computer. Now the problem model has made it over the 24 hour mark and is still going. I’ve googled this and see that the second model may be adjusting the core allocation, priorities, etc.

My question is if anyone knows if it is possible to make this happen without running the second model in parallel with the first. Can I just limit the 2D meshes calculations to 4 cores and get it working?

Hi, I am part of an asset management team in a small municipality. I'd like to learn some basics about water, sewer, and storm water modeling. What are some good resources like books, courses, videos, etc. Where to start, please share any advice or recommendations. My background is Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering, data analytics, and GIS.

Hey everybody,

Working on a project where we will be constructing a transmission main to connect to a storage tank who’s primary source is from a surface water, where we’ll use their supply to assist a neighboring community with ground wells that frequently dry up.

How will the qualities of these two different sources blend? How do you know what to test for?

What else should we be on the look out for?

I have a BS in Environmental Science and work for my states environmental protection agency. I'm looking to go back to school to allow myself to move towards a role that's significantly more science i.e. natural phenomena and processes, physics, dynamics based, than I'm presently in.

After reading around, the go-to suggestion seems to be a Civil Engineering degree for aspiring hydrologists, and although I don't know much, I don't see the connection between CE & doing scientific, research adjacent, or research (work). The suggestion is often made in terms of providing oneself a safety net, in the case of employment.

What should someone who isn't interested in becoming a PE, signing off on designs, working on infrastructure etc. major in? Do I aim for a general BS in physics and take as many water resources/hydrology courses as I can? Does the job I'm dreaming of even exist? I've done a bit of research and my state agency, along with the EPA do hire official 'Hydrologists', alongside engineers as distinct roles/titles; I'm generally just a bit confused, I guess.

Just in case, I'd like to say that I don't want to pursue a PhD & work as/in academia as a researcher. I plan to continue working for a government entity, ideally as a scientist i.e. a hydrologist.

It runs in the browser, no signup, no ads, free. There's a live water cycle canvas plus a "Journey Mode" where a student rides one droplet through evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection, transpiration, and infiltration, making choices along the way (headwater streams, floodplain wetlands, agricultural watersheds, suburban edges). I work in schools and built this as part of a larger open source teaching platform, but I'm not a domain expert in every subject I've covered, and I'd rather hear "your infiltration rates are nonsense" from this sub than have a 6th grader learn it wrong. Specific things I'm least sure about: the relative emphasis on transpiration, and how I've simplified groundwater flow. I'll fix anything you catch and report back in this thread. Thanks for your help!

I'm in a crunch. I am working on a research project involving climate change related projections. I have downloaded GCM data (single variable: precipitation) from CDS, now the data (how GCM data is) has very coarse resolution, I need to downscale the data into higher resolution of 1×1 Km to run a model I have developed. I have data from 5 different models from 4 different SSPs. I am trying to downscaling it using different methods I could but cannot get it right and it's been 3 weeks. I don't have enough time, I need help.

I have been working on a groundwater project all summer. Having so much trouble isolating events and matching them to a recharge event. Any advice?

I run a nonprofit called DMV River Intelligence Network, focused on building ML tools for local watersheds. Our first chapter covers the Potomac at Little Falls, and so far we've built:

• A flood prediction model (XGBoost, USGS gauge data + weather data, ~91% recall, 6-7 hr lead time)
• A live dashboard tracking discharge, gage height, conductivity, temperature, and flood risk
• Currently extending it to predict runoff volume and pollutant load using land cover, soil, and elevation data

The idea is for this to eventually be a chapter-based structure; other people could replicate the pipeline for their own rivers as part of our organization not just us scaling one model.

Trying to figure out what else would actually be useful to build next, either for this chapter or as a model for future ones. Some things I've been considering: water quality forecasting, harmful algal bloom prediction, sediment/erosion tracking, drought risk; but I don't have a strong sense of which of these are actually valuable vs. just technically interesting to me.

If you work in hydrology, environmental science, or just live near a river and think about this stuff — what would you actually want a tool like this to predict or track? What's underserved right now?

If you want to get to know more about the project: instagram.com/dmv.rivernetwork