The Variable Infiltration Capacity model version 5 (VIC-5): infrastructure improvements for new applications and reproducibility
<p>The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model is a macroscale semi-distributed hydrologic model. VIC development began in the early 1990s and the model has since been used extensively for basin- to global-scale applications that include hydrologic dataset construction, trend analysis of...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2018-08-01
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| Series: | Geoscientific Model Development |
| Online Access: | https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/11/3481/2018/gmd-11-3481-2018.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model is a macroscale semi-distributed hydrologic
model. VIC development began in the early 1990s and the model has since been
used extensively for basin- to global-scale applications that include
hydrologic dataset construction, trend analysis of hydrologic fluxes and
states, data evaluation and assimilation, forecasting, coupled climate
modeling, and climate change impact assessment. Ongoing operational
applications of the VIC model include the University of Washington's drought
monitoring and forecasting systems and NASA's Land Data Assimilation System.
This paper documents the development of VIC version 5 (VIC-5), which includes
a major reconfiguration of the legacy VIC source code to support a wider
range of modern hydrologic modeling applications. The VIC source code has
been moved to a public GitHub repository to encourage participation by the
broader user and developer communities. The reconfiguration has separated the
core physics of the model from the driver source code, whereby the latter is
responsible for memory allocation, preprocessing and post-processing, and
input–output (I–O). VIC-5 includes four drivers that use the same core
physics modules, but which allow for different methods for accessing this
core to enable different model applications. Finally, VIC-5 is distributed
with robust test infrastructure, components of which routinely run during
development using cloud-hosted continuous integration. The work described
here provides an example to the model development community for extending the
life of a legacy model that is being used extensively. The development and
release of VIC-5 represents a significant step forward for the VIC user
community in terms of support for existing and new model applications,
reproducibility, and scientific robustness.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1991-959X 1991-9603 |