Development of the Community Water Model (CWatM v1.04) – a high-resolution hydrological model for global and regional assessment of integrated water resources management

Peter Burek,Ting Tang,Peter Greve,Taher Kahil,Mikhail Smilovic,Yoshihide Wada,Yusuke Satoh,Fang Zhao,Luca Guillaumot

doi:10.5194/gmd-13-3267-2020

Abstract

Abstract. We develop a new large-scale hydrological and water resources model, the Community Water Model (CWatM), which can simulate hydrology both globally and regionally at different resolutions from 30 arcmin to 30 arcsec at daily time steps. CWatM is open source in the Python programming environment and has a modular structure. It uses global, freely available data in the netCDF4 file format for reading, storage, and production of data in a compact way. CWatM includes general surface and groundwater hydrological processes but also takes into account human activities, such as water use and reservoir regulation, by calculating water demands, water use, and return flows. Reservoirs and lakes are included in the model scheme. CWatM is used in the framework of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP), which compares global model outputs. The flexible model structure allows for dynamic interaction with hydro-economic and water quality models for the assessment and evaluation of water management options. Furthermore, the novelty of CWatM is its combination of state-of-the-art hydrological modeling, modular programming, an online user manual and automatic source code documentation, global and regional assessments at different spatial resolutions, and a potential community to add to, change, and expand the open-source project. CWatM also strives to build a community learning environment which is able to freely use an open-source hydrological model and flexible coupling possibilities to other sectoral models, such as energy and agriculture.

Highlights

In recent years, the interactions between natural water systems, climate change, socioeconomic impacts, human management of water resources, and ecosystem management have increasingly been incorporated into the processes of large-scale hydrological models (Wada et al, 2017)
Reservoirs and lakes are included in the model scheme
With the support of the Government of Austria through the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), we aim to provide a deeper understanding of critical parameters for achieving water security in East Africa

Summary

Introduction

The interactions between natural water systems, climate change, socioeconomic impacts, human management of water resources, and ecosystem management have increasingly been incorporated into the processes of large-scale hydrological models (Wada et al, 2017). Examples of these models are WaterGAP (Alcamo et al, 2003; Flörke et al, 2013), H08 (Hanasaki et al, 2008, 2018), MATSIRO (Pokhrel et al, 2012), LISFLOOD (De Roo et al, 2000; Udias et al, 2016), PCR-GLOBWB (Van Beek et al, 2011; Wada et al, 2014; Sutanudjaja et al, 2018), and SAFRAN-ISBA-MODCOU (Habets et al, 2008; Decharme et al, 2019). Burek et al.: Development of the Community Water Model (CWatM v1.04)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion