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The major objective of Thrust Area
4 is to integrate emerging scientific understanding
into comprehensive river-basin models that can be used
in the analysis of water resource management issues.
After SAHRA's First Annual Meeting
in March 2001, a suggestion was made to reorganize the
structure of TA4 to better coordinate with the efforts
of other Thrust Areas. In that document a multi-resolution
approach to integrated modeling was proposed; Thrust
Area 4 has consequently been reorganized into three
focus areas:
The rationale is based on the assumption
that the computational burden of the fine resolution
effort might not always be necessary to address a broad
spectrum of basin scale issues, which range from the
precise prediction of hydrologic behavior to the abstract
consequences of policy decisions. Models with a coarser
geographic resolution may facilitate incorporation of
socio-economic responses within a watershed, where very
precise spatio-temporal estimates of hydrologic behavior
are not required.
During a Thrust Area 4 Workshop
held in Albuquerque September 20-21, 2001, the Rio Grande
basin was designated as the testbed for the integrated
modeling efforts within SAHRA. Currently, ten projects
are identified within the thrust area, but some are
only at the beginning stages and therefore are not included
in the present reporting period. A TA 4 workshop held
in Taos June 6-7, 2002 helped to define the projects
within the new basin context. Both workshops were instrumental
in further developing this integrated focus, with particular
thought given to the use that SAHRA researchers working
in socio-economic disciplines may have for the outputs
from the physical models.
An important result of the Taos
workshop has been the creation of a core integrated
modeling team composed of representatives of the various
physical modeling efforts and representatives of the
economics and river operations teams. The goals of this
team are to:
· Provide a conceptual model
outline for the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo
· Coordinate between the three model scales being
pursued
· Identify available data and data needs for
the models
· Identify needed modules for integrated models
· Identify outputs from integrated models to
answer the policy and science needs of SAHRA
Additional Activities:
SAHRA Annual Integrated Catchment
Modeling Workshop,
September 20-21, 2001, Double Tree Hotel, Albuquerque,
NM.
Organizers: Larry Winter, Luis Bastidas, Everett
Springer
On September 20-21, 2001, approximately
35 participants gathered at the Double Tree Hotel in
Albuquerque New Mexico for a SAHRA-sponsored workshop
on integrated catchment modeling. The purpose of the
workshop was to bring together SAHRA researchers doing
modeling, not just from Thrust Area 4, in order to present
the achievements of the different groups and to discuss
the coordination of the proposed multi-resolution approach
and the integration of the different modeling efforts.
The multi-resolution approach was accepted and three
groups of interested researchers were formed to discuss
the three levels of resolution proposed: fine, medium,
and basin scale. The fine resolution group decided to
further pursue the Virtual Watershed Laboratory effort,
and the decision to put together a proposal to the NSF
IT initiative was made. The basin scale (coarse resolution)
group decided that all the efforts will be carried out
using the Powersim software environment. The medium
resolution group decided that it will not be focusing
on a common computational environment, at the moment,
but areas of common use of products from other TA were
identified. It was also generally agreed the use of
the Rio Grande as a pilot basin for the studies.
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