HLM-Web is a physically-based, rainfall-runoff modelling engine capable of providing operational level results using client-side compute while running in a browser. "HLM" stands for the Hillslope Link Model, which is a family of mathematical models that describe rainfall-runoff and streamflow generation processes. "Web" indicates that the package runs natively using modern web standards (i.e., JavaScript.)
HLM is a family of mathematical models that describe the physical processes of rainfall-runoff response and streamflow generation from a river network. Importantly, the directed tree structure of the river network aides in the computation of the numerical solution. HLM and a numerical solver have been implemented in other languages, namely in the C Programming Language for the Iowa Flood Center's flood forecasting tool. Currently implemented, HLW-Web is packaged with both constant and variable rainfall-runoff models. Many more models exist in the C Programming Language implementation. Thus, additional models can easily be added upon need and request.
This repo includes two versions of HLM-Web; Standard and BMI.
We encourage reading this documentation first.
The standard version is a standalone application.
Usage: This version is best suited for those who intend to run HLM-Web alone without any need to couple the HLM-Web simulation external models or data.
With this version we provide significant documentation and benchmarking results to show that HLM-Web's outputs correspond with the results from the previous C programming language implementation of the model. This version has been documented in the literature and currently supports educational web applications. (See the references section below for a link to the pre-print.)
The second is an implementation of HLM-Web which complies with the Basic Model Interface (BMI) specification.
Usage: This version is best suited for those who intend to couple external data sources or models with HLM-Web.
Its documentation focuses more on its differences with and its capabilities beyond the standard implementation. A publication demonstrating its use is forthcoming.
This project is supported by the University of Iowa Hydroinformatics Lab (UIHI Lab).
Gregory Ewing, Ricardo Mantilla, Witold Krajewski, & Ibrahim Demir. Interactive Hydrological Modelling and Simulation on Client-Side Web Systems: An Educational Case Study Preprint, to Journal of Hydroinformatics.
[in preparation] Gregory Ewing, Carlos Erazo Ramirez, Ashani Vaidya, & Ibrahim Demir. Coupling Web-based Hydrologic Tools via the BMI Specification for JavaScript