TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Until now, cutting-edge hydrological modeling has been locked behind technical barriers. NextGen In A Box is a transformative open source solution now available through the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology, headquartered at The University of Alabama. NGIAB developed by CIROH and Lynker packages a complete software setup for using the U.S. fourth generation National Water Model, bringing sophisticated water modeling to everyone from local communities to top-tier researchers.
A Leap Forward in Hydrological Modeling
Before NGIAB, customizing the national water model required specialized expertise including domain and computer scientists, extensive hardware, and challenging manual setup.
“Researchers previously spent weeks setting up the necessary packages to run models on their local machines or high-performance computing systems, but with modern cyberinfrastructure improvements to the NextGen Water Resource Modeling Framework, setup now takes 30 minutes or less,” said Arpita Patel, DevOps manager and enterprise architect at UA’s Alabama Water Institute.
NGIAB streamlines the entire process, offering real-time data ingestion, automated workflows, and seamless integration with high-performance and cloud computing. It includes the tools and interfaces users might need in an open source, continuously updated software environment. Now, anyone adapt and deploy localized water models to improve flood response, drought planning and resource management.
Real-World Impact
A case study for the Provo River Basin in Utah shows how researchers validated model performance at a reduced spatial scale. Using the integrated tools like the data preprocessor, TEEHR evaluation and Tethys Platform for visualization, a user can easily select catchments and date ranges using an interactive map, making data preparation, evaluation and visualization a straightforward task.
With NGIAB, hydrologists and decision-makers can rapidly adapt water models for regions facing extreme weather, improving response times for floods, droughts, and water management crises.
“By providing full control over model inputs, configurations and execution, NGIAB enables seamless deployment across personal laptops, cloud services, and HPC environments,” Patel said. “This solution empowers consortium members, partners and researchers to quickly set up and run simulations to drive innovation and push the boundaries of the field.”
What’s Next for NGIAB
Looking ahead, the NGIAB team envisions expanding the platform’s capabilities to include:
- Enhanced visualization and decision support
- Automated model evaluation framework
- Seamless data integration ecosystem
- Expanded model physics and process representation
“NGIAB aims to bridge the gap between research and operational implementation,” Patel said. “We are offering these tools so researchers can focus on their research, not on IT and software. NGIAB will not only improve model output quality but also transform how these outputs can be utilized for scientific discovery, forecasting, and informed decision-making across diverse water management applications.”