WL / Delft Hydraulics participates in a variety of projects in the Catchmod cluster, under the Key Action 1 (Sustainable Management and Quality of Water), sub 1.1 (Integrated management and sustainable use of water resources at catchment/river basin or sub-basin-scale) RTD priority 1.1.1 - Strategic planning and integrated management methodologies and tools at catchment/river basin scale of the DG Research 5th Framework Programme of The European Commission.
Within the cluster, WL / Delft Hydraulics participates in the following interrelated projects:
- HarmonIT - IT Frameworks (EVK1-2001-00037)
- HarmoniQUA - Harmonising Quality Assurance in model based catchment and river basin management (EVK1-2001-00071)
- BMW - Benchmark Models for the Water Framework Directive (EVK1-2001-00054)
- HarmoniCOP - Harmonising Collaborative Planning (EVK1-CT-2002-00120). HarmoniCOP analyses the role of modelling and information tools in public participative processes. The main output, to be completed in 2005, will be a handbook on public participation for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive. HarmoniQuA focuses on quality assurance in relation to modelling studies. It develops a software toolbox to support the modelling process with guidelines (stored in a knowledge base), and a logging facility. By structuring the modelling process and recording the decisions being made, the traceability of model study outcomes will be improved. The toolbox is currently in its last test round and will be delivered in 2005. While HarmoniQuA addresses the entire modelling process, BMW focuses on an important part of this process, namely the selection of a model with associated considerations. A protocol has been developed to structure the decision process on the application of a model through the use of a dialogue between modeller and water manager. This dialogue is supported by a model inventory database which focuses specifically on features relevant to the Water Framework Directive. Since integrated water management requires that many processes be taken into account, one must typically deal with a variety of models that need to be linked together. HarmonIT is developing an international interface standard for online links between models. The specification of this standard, OpenMI, has been completed and is available on the web (www.harmonit.org). The associated software implementation will be released in early 2005 as open source software. WL / Delft Hydraulics will launch its first OpenMI compliant software components as a 2-functionality in the SOBEK 2005 release. Progress is ongoing on other software products both within and outside of WL / Delft Hydraulics. |
