Exploring the Role of Domain Model Simulations

Physics-based distributed hydrologic models (DHMs) simulate multiple hydrologic states at numerous locations within a watershed, and at fine time intervals [1-7]. As the spatio-temporal resolution of model simulation becomes finer and number of predicted hydrologic states becomes larger, model simulations become more and more computationally intensive, rendering solution of large problems intractable or at least not suitable for near real-time predictions on a serial computer. The computational burden is further enhanced by the use of finer resolution (≤ 30m) geospatial products that are inputs to these models. The need to run DHMs at fine spatiotemporal resolution for multiple states/parameters over large domains necessitates the use of high performance computing (HPC) systems.