Abstract

The National Water Model (NWM) provides operational streamflow forecasts for 2.7 million stream reaches across the continental United States, yet technical barriers prevent widespread public access to this hydrological infrastructure. This paper presents RIVR (River Information Visualization and Risk), a cross-platform mobile application that transforms National Water Model forecasts into an accessible interface for non-technical users. Built with Flutter, the application deploys to iOS and Android from a single codebase and integrates NOAA forecast APIs, CIROH return-period thresholds, and interactive vector-tile mapping. Performance evaluation across six metrics: application size, startup time, memory consumption, rendering frame rates, API response times, and cache effectiveness, demonstrates production readiness on both platforms. iOS and Android achieved sub-second startup times (722 ms and 1,080 ms), maintained 60+ FPS rendering during map interaction, and remained within acceptable memory footprints (506 MB and 971 MB, respectively). Cache hit rates of 66% effectively mitigated API latency for frequently accessed reaches. Network delays for medium-range forecasts (4-5 seconds) represent the primary bottleneck, constrained by external NOAA infrastructure rather than application architecture. The implementation demonstrates technical feasibility for mobile-based scientific data democratization, providing architectural patterns and performance benchmarks applicable to similar efforts and translating API-based data services into accessible mobile interfaces.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering; Civil and Construction Engineering

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2026-04-14

Document Type

Thesis

Keywords

National Water Model, streamflow forecasting, mobile application, cross-platform development, Flutter, data democratization, hydrological visualization, flood risk communication

Language

english

Download

Included in

Engineering Commons

Share

COinS