Reproducible, component‐based modeling with TopoFlow, a spatial hydrologic modeling toolkit. Issue 6 (29th June 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Peckham, Scott D.; Stoica, Maria; Jafarov, Elchin; Endalamaw, Abraham; Bolton, W. Robert
• Is Part Of: Earth and space science. Volume 4:Issue 6(2017:Jun.)
• Page Start: 377
• Page End: 394
• Publication Date: 2017-06-29
• Subjects: reproducibility -- component‐based modeling -- hydrologic model -- TopoFlow -- open source -- Python; Space sciences -- Periodicals; Geophysics -- Periodicals; 500.5
• DOI: 10.1002/2016EA000237
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2333-5084

Abstract

Abstract : Modern geoscientists have online access to an abundance of different data sets and models, but these resources differ from each other in myriad ways and this heterogeneity works against interoperability as well as reproducibility. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the main issues and some best practices for addressing the challenge of reproducible science in the context of a relatively simple hydrologic modeling study for a small Arctic watershed near Fairbanks, Alaska. This study requires several different types of input data in addition to several, coupled model components. All data sets, model components and processing scripts (e.g., for preparation of data and figures, and for analysis of model output) are fully documented and made available online at persistent URLs. Similarly, all source codes for the models and scripts are open source, version controlled, and made available online via GitHub. Each model component has a Basic Model Interface to simplify coupling and its own HTML help page that includes a list of all equations and variables used. The set of all model components (TopoFlow) has also been made available as a Python package for easy installation. Three different graphical user interfaces for setting up TopoFlow runs are described, including one that allows model components to run and be coupled as web services. Key Points: This paper provides a simple example of a reproducible hydrologic modeling study All of the data, models and processing scripts used in this study are shared online Customized data preparation scripts are typically required due to data heterogeneity