ARCHYDRO: A TOOL FOR MANAGING

HYDRO-METEOROLOGICAL DATA

Hamed Assaf

Water Resources Section

Sustainable Development &

Productivity Division

Water and Climate (W&C) Data Management and

Analysis Requirements

• W&C data is spatial.

• W&C data is temporal (time series &

simulations).

• W&C data is highly interrelated and can be

very large.

• W&C data need to be accessed by a diverse

and geographically dispersed groups of

users.

Does Geographic Information System (GIS) fulfill

these requirements?

• GIS was developed to provide a spatial context to

information.

• GIS is based on the relational database

approach.

• GIS provides a flexible, intuitive and visual

interface to manage and analyze data.

• GIS platforms are increasingly network oriented.

• GIS does not address temporal data adequately.

The GIS provides a spatial context to information.

The GIS is a relational database approach.

Arc Hydro

• Arc Hydro is an ArcGIS database model

designed to manage and analyze water

resources data.

• Arc Hydro handles both spatial and temporal data

• Contains several tools for hydrologic analysis,

time series analysis, river networking and

groundwater modeling.

Hamed Assaf 7

Arc Hydro Data Components

Hydrogeologic unit Boreholes

Layers Solid

Hydrography

Hydro Network

Channel System

Drainage System

Flow

Time

Time Series

Surface Water

Groundwater

Temporal

Representation

Arc Hydro Data

Components

8Source: “Arc Hydro: GIS for Water Resources (Maidment 2002)”

Time representation in Arc hydro

9

TSDateTime

FeatureID

TSType

TSValue

Time representation in Arc hydro

10

Time series for a spatial feature

(e.g. a given station)

TSDateTime

FeatureID

TSType

101

11

Time series of a given data type

(e.g. evaporation)

TSDateTime

FeatureID

TSType

Evaporation

12

Time series of a given data type for a single feature

(e.g. evaporation at a given location)

TSDateTime

FeatureID

TSType

Evaporation

Example: representation of point time series

Well HydroID = 2791

Source: (Jones et al. 2010) “Arc Hydro Groundwater”.

Example: representation of variable raster data.

January 1991

January 1992

January 1993

Source: (Jones et al. 2010) “Arc Hydro Groundwater”.

Example: managing and animating downscaled

GCM output for Lebanon

Example: managing and animating downscaled

GCM output for Lebanon

ScenariosTimeLocation

Monthly temperatures (oC) from a

downscaled GCM output

Monthly precipitations (mm) from a

downscaled GCM output

Examples of hydrological analysis in Arc Hydro

Watershed delineation Flowpath

Online access & sharing of data

• GIS portals offer visual and intuitive interfaces to

access GIS data.

• Geoportal Server technology by ESRI (Environmental

Systems Research Institute).

• Examples of ESRI Geoportal sites:

– NOAA’s North American Drought Monitor

– CUAHSI (Consortium of Universities for the

Advancement of Hydrologic Science) Hydrologic Data

Access System

NOAA’s North American Drought Monitor

CUAHSI (Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of

Hydrologic Science) Hydrologic Data Access System