Water Institute member Juliane Mai awarded $200,000 to advance hydrologic prediction
Dr. Juliane (Julie) Mai, Research Associate Professor who joined the Department Earth and Environmental Sciences in 2023, has been awarded over $200,000 from Environment and Climate Change Canada as part of the National Adaptation Strategy and Hydrologic prediction and innovation funding program.
The funding will support the development of an interactive web-based platform that will be a gateway facilitating hydrologic modeling by providing automated workflows to obtain model setups, input data, calibrated models and simulations at any user specified location. The portal will enable users to access pre-derived streamflow simulations of hydrologic models across Canada.
Dr. Juliane (Julie) Mai, Research Associate Professor, Department Earth and Environmental Sciences.
“This funding is exciting because it allows us to create a first-of-its-kind portals that will greatly enhance our ability to predict water flow in Canadian watersheds,” says Dr. Mai. “With climate change increasing the unpredictability of water systems, these tools will help decision-makers better manage water resources in real time.”
The platform will offer users two key modes of operation:
- Simulation of pre-defined watershed: Users can display simulated streamflow ensembles for one of the hundreds of pre-selected and pre-derived watersheds in Canada.
- Simulation of user-requested watershed: Users can opt for a watershed of their interest by selecting any point on a river network. This would trigger a sequence of actions in the background — from automatic watershed delineation, gathering and clipping of input data, automatic model setup including parameter regionalization, and streamflow simulation.
According to Dr. Mai, “Both physically based, and data-driven models will underpin this portal, allowing users ranging from community members to hydropower or flood prediction managers, to explore hydrologic behavior with a flexibility that hasn’t been available before. Whether it's choosing from pre-defined watersheds or customizing your own, these tools will significantly improve hydrologic predictions and decision-making capabilities.”
The first option offers instantaneous results, displayed on the web portal through interactive graphics and maps. “This is a critical advancement in the usability, reliability, and accessibility of water forecasts,” Mai adds. “Water managers will be able to rely on these tools to make quicker, more informed decisions.”
Sample portal graphics and maps.
In the second option users will be notified via email once the triggered processing is finished and be provided with an option to download all data including model setups, input data necessary to run the model for the respective watershed, already produced model results and a step-by-step documentation to reproduce the results using the data provided. The data portal will be hosted through the HydroHub platform which was also created and maintained by Dr. Mai.
If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Mai’s research and current PhD opportunities, visit her website here.
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