SWATShare

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a public domain, semi-distributed, conceptual model used worldwide for simulating rainfall-runoff processes, non-point source pollution and agricultural management practices. It is developed and maintained by the by the USDA Agricultural Research Service at the Blackland Research & Extension Center in Temple, Texas, USA. The model includes the following components: weather, surface runoff, return flow, percolation, evapotranspiration, transmission losses, pond and reservoir storage, crop growth and irrigation, groundwater flow, reach routing, nutrient and pesticide loading, and water transfer.

HydroShare enables sharing and publication of SWAT Model Instances. Besides these two basic functionalities, SWAT model instances can also be executed and visualized by interacting with an external model sharing system called SWATShare by using Apps. A brief description and functionality of each App is provided below.

What can you do with SWATShare Web Apps

Please note: HydroShare does not allow creating new SWAT Model Instance resources anymore, and users need to use a Model Instance aggregation to upload “any” models including SWAT. The users are still able to use “Open with” SWATShare to interact with the obsolete SWAT Model Instance resources. However, “Open with” SWATShare is still NOT enabled for Model Instance aggregations used for an Instance of SWAT model, something that will be done in near future.

SWATShare Apps enable interoperability between HydroShare and SWATShare by letting users to run and visualize SWAT model instances that are stored in HydroShare.

Open SWATShare from HydroShare

The SWATShare Web App is a basic App that will open the SWATShare application without transferring any data from HydroShare to SWATShare. This app can be used to explore existing SWAT model instances in SWATShare. If a user finds a model instance that he or she needs, that instances can be either imported into that user’s HydroShare account, or can be directly downloaded on his/her own computer.

The SWATShare Web App can be found on apps.hydroshare.org or by using the ‘Open with..’ menu on the SWAT Model Instance landing page as shown below:

Running this App will open SWATShare landing page as shown below:

To execute and visualize SWAT Model Instances in SWATShare, a user can use his/her HydroShare login when prompted.

Explore Metadata using SWATShare

The SWATShare Explore App enables a user to preview the SWATModel Instance metadata in SWATShare. This App can be found under the Open with..’ menu on the SWAT Model Instance landing page as shown below:

Using the App will open the model instance metadata in SWATShare as shown below.

The transfer model button on the lower right corner will transfer the model to SWATShare, which then allows a user to run or visualize the model using SWATShare functions. A user can use the HydroShare login credentials to login to SWATShare when prompted.

Export SWAT model from HydroShare to SWATShare

The SWATShare Export App enables a user to export the SWATModel Instance from HydroShare to SWATShare. This App can be found under the Open with..’ menu on the SWAT Model Instance landing page as shown below:

Using this App will create a copy of HydroShare’s SWAT Model Instance in SWATShare with a new name. The user will be prompted to provide a new name and HydroShare login credentials to store the model in SWATShare.

Visualize SWAT model outputs through SWATShare

The SWATShare Visualize App enables a user to visualize model outputs both spatially and temporally by using SWATShare visualization functions.  This App can be found under the Open with..’ menu on the SWAT Model Instance landing page as shown below:

Using this App will create a copy of HydroShare’s SWAT Model Instance in SWATShare, and open the SWATShare visualization function as shown below.

A user can then create temporal and/or spatial plots of the results as shown below by selecting an appropriate time domain.

Time series plots of precipitation, surface runoff, groundwater and soil water content from SWATShare are shown below.

Spatial plot of rainfall and surface runoff are shown below.

Run SWAT models through SWATShare

The SWATShare Run App enables a user to execute/run a SWAT Model Instance in HydroShare by using XSEDE resource via SWATShare. This App can be found under the Open with..’ menu on the SWAT Model Instance landing page as shown below:

Using this App will create a copy of HydroShare’s SWAT Model Instance in SWATShare, and open the SWATShare Run function as shown below. The user has to provide a model name and HydroShare login credentials (if prompted) to submit the model (using the Run button) for execution on an XSEDE resource (COMET cluster in this case). Once the simulation is complete, the Job Status will change to ‘Done’ as shown below.

Suggestions to learn more

Credits, Authors, Contributors and Contacts

Dr. Venkatesh Merwade

Lyles School of Civil Engineering, 550 Stadium Mall Dr., West Lafayette, IN 47907

vmerwade@purdue.edu

765-494-2176