BlueEarth, an Integrated Approach from Model Building to Stakeholder Dialogue

Water resources management and planning requires integration of a wide variety of disciplines and corresponding computational models. Given the challenges in ensuring multi-model consistency, especially when evaluating interventions that affect multiple models, the need was felt within Deltares for a solidified approach and shared tooling for model building, model integration, analysis and communication. Using the slogan “Enabling informed and interactive decision-making", the Deltares BlueEarth initiative was launched. Within this initiative, three tooling pillars are identified: Model Building, Computational Framework and Dashboards. The three pillars share a central data storage facility. Taking global datasets as a starting point, where possible supplemented with local data, the Model Building toolkit accelerates the model building process and aims to ensure consistency across the various model datasets created. The initial focus is on Deltares modelling packages in the water system domain (i.e. wflow, iMod, RIBASIM, DFLOW-FM and DelWAQ), but expansion with other (non-Deltares) packages can be accommodated. The Computational Framework, powered by Delft-FEWS, streamlines the dataflow during the computation process. It takes care of data administration and provides the workflow engine to chain the models that can be run in sequence. If simulation models need bi-directional interaction, a joint model engine is foreseen with timestep based interaction using the Basic Model Interface (BMI) approach, adopted from the Community Surface Dynamics Modelling System (CSDM). Like the Delft-FEWS forecasting system, a file-based data exchange mechanism using model adapters is used to plug model engines into the Computational Framework. The Computational Framework will also orchestrate the consistent use of scenario selections (e.g. climate) and interventions to be evaluated. Using the Deltares Open Archive, multiple users can share the same simulation results for comparison and analysis. A webservice stack on top of the Open Archive allows the development of dashboards tailored to support effective stakeholder dialogue.