2024-03-28 - March 28, 2024

[dprincz]

Basin aggregation

• @kasra-keshavarz says it's ongoing; Zelalem will share materials from an offline meeting which demonstrate the approach used by the Rscript version; Zelalem will share the Rscript version via GitHub

Forcing data

• An existing exists for reading multiple forcing files: MESH climate forcing month-by-month  #37
• @kasra-keshavarz intends to try to add code in MESH to use I/O operations to determine the start times of files; though the MESH stewards caution regarding the Fortran standard and licensing if using an external library
• Al proposes a potential option to also subset spatially inline

Model-agnostic framework

• The current workflows/framework are not HPC-agnostic; UofC will continue with assuming use on its HPC, but is also discussing a Cloud-based service
• The scripts are available on GitHub and should be transferable to any other Linux system

Special discussion on the treatment of non-contributing areas (NCA) -- "rarely contributing"

• @kasra-keshavarz referenced this paper MERIT-basins
• NCAs are currently labelled CSD or NCA by the workflow, but NCAs are only treated as "truly" non-contributing; no mechanism exists to identify "variable" contributing areas
• NCAs are treated as "truly" non-contributing, so they are not connected to the rest of the basin and cannot represent fill and spill hydrology
• MERIT-basins identifies NCAs as subbasins < 25 km²; they are not "non-contributing areas" by scientific descriptions, they areas smaller than the threshold used for delineating channel properties of basins
• USGS defines NCAs, interpreted as "truly" non-contributing, but a mechanism must exist to connect these to the rest of the basin (e.g., interpreted as "variable" contributing areas)

Two problems

1. MERIT-basins does not define NCAs so must be post-processed to find them; could the workflow take an index or shapefile that defines them, or should it be done by some process in the workflow and a consistent methodology
2. USGS defines NCAs, interpreted as "truly" not contributing, but these should be defined as variable contributing areas; however, some method must be determined to connect these areas to the rest of the basin

Next steps

• Al, @kasra-keshavarz to brainstorm how those areas should be connected to an adjacent subbasin by geofabric post-processing, consulting with Mohamed Ahmed; will work with @sujata91 to assess potential solutions over the St Mary/Milk (using USGS geofabric)
• @sujata91 to connect with @fuadyassin for the best way to parameterize and connect those areas not currently connected to the rest of the basin