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Automated Water Supply Model (AWSM): Streamlining and Standardizing Application of a Physically Based Snow Model for Water Resources and Reproducible Science
Computers & Geosciences (2020)
  • Scott Havens, USDA Agricultural Research Service
  • Danny Marks, USDA Agricultural Research Service
  • Micah Sandusky, USDA Agricultural Research Service
  • Andrew Hedrick, USDA Agricultural Research Service
  • Micah Johnson, USDA Agricultural Research Service
  • Mark Robertson, USDA Agricultural Research Service
  • Ernesto Trujillo, USDA Agricultural Research Service
Abstract
Reproducible science requires a shift in thinking and application for how data, code and analysis are shared.
Now, scientists must act more like software engineers to design models and perform analysis that use principles
and techniques pioneered by software developers. Creating reproducible models that are easy to use and understand is in the best interest for the snow and hydrology community, enabling studies by other researchers and facilitating technology transfer to operational applications. Here, we present the Automated Water Supply Model (AWSM) that streamlines and standardizes the workflow of a physically based snow model to create fully
reproducible model simulations that can be utilized by researchers and operational water resource managers.
AWSM orchestrates four core components that historically required significant, ad-hoc modeler interaction to
load the input data, spatially interpolate to the modeling domain, run the models and process the outputs.
Because AWSM was developed using principles and techniques from software engineering, users can quickly
perform reproducible simulations on any operating system, from a laptop to the cloud. The three fully reproducible example case studies showcase the simplicity and flexibility of using AWSM to perform simulations from
small research catchments to simulations that aid in real time water management decisions.
Keywords
  • hydrology,
  • computational method,
  • software engineering,
  • data assimulation
Disciplines
Publication Date
November, 2020
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2020.104571
Citation Information
Scott Havens, Danny Marks, Micah Sandusky, Andrew Hedrick, et al.. "Automated Water Supply Model (AWSM): Streamlining and Standardizing Application of a Physically Based Snow Model for Water Resources and Reproducible Science" Computers & Geosciences Vol. 144 (2020) p. 104571
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ernesto-trujillo/5/