Global Water Model (GWM)

Overview

GWM (Global Water Model) is our company’s internal challenge to model the terrestrial water circulation system of the main continents of the world using distributed open source data of topography and meteorology.From the recent past, global human society has been confronting with many serious problems, such as global warming, population expansion and water shortage, food production, etc., which are closely related to world water issues. In such a situation, we need to comprehend the most recent tendency of these problems in order to implement mitigation techniques. The aim of this project is to continuously supply information contributing to the implementation of mitigation techniques. The global water simulation model will contribute to design various countermeasures by interacting with constantly changing water circulation boundary conditions.

Development of GWM

Firstly, we will prepare a 3D numerical model with 10km 2D grid system that covers major continents of the world with the depth of 10km. Then, the areas with high population density or complicated water flow patterns will be partially subdivided by nesting grids of 1 to 5 kilometers. Finally, each of the numerical grids will be given the information of topography, precipitation, temperature, land use, and hydrogeology, as well as many parameters such as permeability and porosity.

Outline of the Development Plan

(1) Development Phases

The total development period of GWM will be five years; three years in the 1st phase and two years in the 2nd phase. The first three years will be scheduled as follows.

• Sub phase1 – Prepare dataset
• Sub phase2 – Construct3D numerical model (primary grid block system)
• Sub phase3 – Initialize the terrestrial fluid flow using primary grid block system
  (Fluid flow simulation based on 2-phases 3-components which are water, air and salinity)
• Sub phase4 – Update simulated result by using the nested grid block system (secondary grid block system)
• Sub phase5 – Visualization (Preparing maps and animations)

The numerical simulation will be run under parallel computing environment (PC cluster) in our office. During the 2nd phase, future forecasting data from climate model and water utilization conditions for each region will be include to the model. Eventually, we will estimate and evaluate the impact on water circulation system.

(2) Timetable

1st Period – 2011 to 2014 (3 years)
2nd Period – 2014 to 2016 (2 years)