Webinar Title:
The Next Generation Water Resources Modeling Framework: What It Is, a Proof of Concept, and How to Get Involved

Webinar Description:

Hydrologists now know: no single model accurately represents a large range of hydrologic regimes and scales. The new challenge for the community is selecting the best model for the specific need, location, and scale. The Next Generation Water Resources Modeling Framework (NextGen), currently under development by NOAA and its partners, is being designed to address this need. It will expedite development in this area by facilitating collaboration and promoting model interoperability, allowing evidence-based and process-driven model evaluation, comparison, and selection. This work will support the development of the National Water Model version 4.0, which will move away from the current single land surface model-based approach (Noah-MP) to a model-agnostic approach. This change will allow us to better capture dominant hydrologic processes across multiple physiographic regions and scales.

 In this presentation, we describe NextGen and all its components and present a proof-of-concept study demonstrating the power of model selection using NextGen. We also discuss ways the community can get involved in the project and benefit from the tools NOAA and its partners are creating.  

Speaker Biography: Luciana Kindl Da Cunha
Vice President, WEST Consultants Inc.
Folsom, CA USA

Dr. Cunha is a vice president overseeing WEST’s Folsom, California, office. She has over 20 years of international experience in hydrology and water resources engineering. Dr. Cunha is currently working with NOAA on the development of the Next Generation Water Modeling Framework (NextGen). In her free time, she enjoys running after her very energetic toddler.