July 12, 2024

Regional geological modeling with surface topography with Gempy and Aquifer App - Tutorial

July 12, 2024/ Saul Montoya

The coupling of Python scripts with the Aquifer App platform allows us to generate geological models with a versatility not seen before. This is a basic example of regional geological modeling in Aquifer App with surface topography from a digital elevation model in TIF format. The tutorial also makes a 3D representation of the contacts and orientations of the one layer geology in a Jupyter notebook for better analysis of the geological sequence.

July 03, 2024

Geological modeling of a recumbent fold with Gempy and Aquifer App - Tutorial

July 03, 2024/ Saul Montoya

The coupling of Python scripts with the Aquifer App platform allows us to generate geological models with a versatility not seen before. This is a basic example of geological modeling of an recumbent fold in Aquifer App that can create models using Gempy. The tutorial also makes a 3D representation of the contacts and orientations of the layers in a Jupyter notebook for better analysis of the geological sequence.

July 02, 2024

Flood simulation from direct rainfall with Python and Landlab - Tutorial

July 02, 2024/ Saul Montoya

Simulation of direct precipitation events over a surface is important to assess the impacted areas and manage disaster situations. Response to precipitation is evaluated over cells in a 2D model and runoff is routed to the stream networks. Landlab is a Python library for a variety of surface processes and can model shallow water flow over topography with a variety of algorithms. We have developed an applied case of direct rainfall for flood modeling over a geospatial raster where an initial water height is applied and then flows over the surface. Resulting water heights are exported as geospatial rasters.

June 28, 2024

Geological modeling of an anticline structure with Gempy and Aquifer App - Tutorial

June 28, 2024/ Saul Montoya

The coupling of Python scripts with the Aquifer App platform allows us to generate geological models with a versatility not seen before. This is a basic example of geological modeling of an anticline structure in Aquifer App that can create models using Gempy. The tutorial also makes a 3D representation of the contacts and orientations of the layers in a Jupyter notebook for better analysis of the geological sequence.

June 21, 2024

Missing Crop Vegetation Areas Detection with Python and Scikit Learn

June 21, 2024/ Saul Montoya

An applied case for the recognition of missing crop vegetation areas based on a drone orthophoto. Contours have been identified from an enhanced combination of raster bands with a marching squares method to find constant valued contours and then exported as geospatial polygons.

June 18, 2024

Simplify / densify stream network online with Hatari Utils - Tutorial

June 18, 2024/ Saul Montoya

Watershed delineation and stream network determination are common tasks on the hydrological analysis for any area of interest. There is a parameter on the stream network determination that allows us to have simple stream networks that resemble the main water courses or dense stream networks that map all the permanent / temporary streams. This is an applied example of stream network determination on our online platform Hatari Utils where you can specify the number of upstream cells and interactively review the result.

June 04, 2024

Watershed delineation for basins containing internal lakes / reservoirs with Hatari Utils - Tutorial

June 04, 2024/ Saul Montoya

Hydrological basins could have a diversity of shapes due to the morphology and it´s a challenge to have a process that can delineate basins with different characteristics in a short amount of time. Hatari Utils is an online platform for hydrogeological analysis that has a tool for basin delineation, in this tutorial we have tested the capabilities of Hatari Utils to delineate a basin that has an internal lake.

May 11, 2024

ModelMuse version 5.2 has been released, explore what is new version.

May 11, 2024/ Saul Montoya

Even though that the version 5.2 was released on March 22 2024 we just found time to make a video explaning the new features of this version and where they are implemented on the graphical user interfase. This new version of Model Muse allows to simulate variable density and variable viscosity flow among other features of Modflow 6. Have a look on the video and wait for our comming applied tutorials related to these new features.

May 04, 2024

Basic tutorial of online geological modeling with Gempy in AquiferApp

May 04, 2024/ Saul Montoya

Gempy is an open-source library for modeling geology written in Python. The library is capable of creating complex 3D geological models including structures, fault networks, and unconformities and it can be coupled with uncertainty analysis.

Hatarilabs have developed an online platform to create geological models with Gempy with minimal effort. The online tool is called GempyApp and runs under AquiferApp (aquifer.hatarilabs.com). This tutorial shows an applied example of geologic modeling of 4 layers with a fault. The tutorial covers the steps of point and orientation file input, definition of fault/strats and geological sequence, show data stats and tables, run the geological model interpolation and plot results.

February 12, 2024

Seawater speciation modeling on cloud with Aquifer App and Phreeqc - Tutorial

February 12, 2024/ Saul Montoya

No more installations, no more database link up, no more raw text data as model output. Aquifer App now can run Phreeqc with great tools for the geochemical model setup, database selection and tables / graphics for the different simulation components.

This applied example calculates the distribution of aqueous species in seawater and the saturation state of seawater relative to a set of minerals and is based on the Example 1 of the USGS Phreeqc example documentation.

November 09, 2023

Online tools for groundwater modeling preprocessing with Model Muse - Tutorial

November 09, 2023/ Saul Montoya

If you want to speed up some steps in groundwater modeling you might be interested in the tools presented on this tutorial. We have developed some online tools that replace intense and time consuming tasks on desktop software and web servers and provide vector and raster data on the formats required by Model Muse. The tutorial covers the steps of DEM generation as Surfer Grid File (*.grd) with the definition of watersheds and river network based on two online services provided by Hatarilabs.

October 12, 2023

How to direct download / clip elevations and import them to Model Muse with Python - Tutorial

October 12, 2023/ Saul Montoya

If you work often with numerical models this process will save you much time. The traditional method of downloading elevation models (Aster DEM) from websites, and reprojecting / clipping them with GIS software can be time consuming and pulls you out of other critical tasks on model conceptualization and calibrations. We have done a complete process in Python under WSL that runs Ubuntu in Windows, this platform was chosen due to the complexities of installing GDAL in Windows.

There are two scripts, one to download the images and the second to translate and clip the image. Finally the elevation are imported as a Surfer Grid File (*.grd) into a model in Model Muse.

August 02, 2021

Tutorial to do a tutorial in open source software for water resources

August 02, 2021/ Saul Montoya

Let's have a look at the tutorial concept in its real dimension. A tutorial is a period of instruction that provides practical information about a specific topic. The tutorial can be given by an individual or institution and has a goal to teach you something or master you in something you didn't know before.

However in water resources software, we don’t see the tutorial as a part of the documentation or a key part of the learning experience. The tutorial is in fact an essential part needed to understand the whole capabilities of the software in practical exercises. It´s true that most software delivery exercises of different applied cases, but we can’t say they are tutorial in fact because those exercises lack a perspective of guided work.

June 24, 2021

How to install the Python geological modeling library Gempy in Windows with Debian and WSL

June 24, 2021/ Saul Montoya

Due to the required packages and specific configuration the installation of Gempy is a challenge on Windows, we have developed an alternative installation process by the use of a Debian kernel under a Windows Subsystem for Linux. This tutorial shows the complete procedure to install Gempy from the Debian kernel setup to the review of the Gempy in Python.

February 10, 2021

Are we learning software in water resources in the wrong way?

February 10, 2021/ Saul Montoya

However, based on what we see we still have some doubts about the way that we are learning software in water resources, and we are concerned if the level / rate of knowledge shared will cope with the next challenges of humanity as climate change in water resources meaning droughts, floods and others or developing sustainable policies in water resources.

October 02, 2020

Basic tutorial of geological modeling with Python and Gempy

October 02, 2020/ Saul Montoya

We have created a tutorial of geological modeling based on geological contacts and surface orientations. The tutorial was developed in a Gempy container that runs under Docker in Windows 10; the tutorial covers the software installation and the geological modeling scripting.

September 01, 2020

How much does a groundwater model cost? And how long does it take?

September 01, 2020/ Saul Montoya

Development of groundwater numerical models on a commercial scale has brought some issues regarding stakeholder participation, prediction quality and indelible price and time.

It might be that the question of how much a model can cost can be resolved as an equilibrium of how much are people willing to pay and how much the consultant is willing to receive. We will discuss some topics of this critical but not well explained topic in this article.

June 04, 2020

8 Tutorials of Contaminant Transport Modeling in Modflow and MT3DMS / MT3D

June 04, 2020/ Saul Montoya

Groundwater remediation is a challenge for stakeholders, scientists and population due to the limited baselines, high uncertainty, limited budgets and timeframes, and not so strong modeling capabilities of related professionals on a general scope (don’t take it personal). We might think about the success of groundwater remediation when we achieve a big group - more than a hundred per country - of geoscientists whit high skills on groundwater modeling distributed on the private sector, the regulatory sector and academia.

October 27, 2017

Tutorial: Wave Barrier Design with OpenFOAM and Salome

October 27, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Coastal structures are subject to tidal and wave related boundary conditions. The design of a wave barrier have to assess the water levels on the inner bay from the impact of a wave and the maximum wave height on the outside part of the structure. This evaluation can be done by the use of dynamic simulations that take into account sea floor geometry, wave barrier height, position and interaction from the water channel and so on. OpenFOAM is an open source software for the simulation of flow in steady and transient states; the software allows us the simulation of the wave interaction with the coastal structure. The tutorial deals with the main parts of mesh construction in Salome and model set up and simulation in OpenFOAM.

June 19, 2017

Modeling of Soil Erosion with Landlab in Python – Open Source Software

June 19, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Soil erosion is the movement of the upper soil layers caused by processes related to water or wind. Soil erosion can occur slowly on the surface, however, soil alterations caused by human activity can increase this rate in 10 to 40 times. The evaluation of soil erosion is important to estimate the impact of human activities and the planning of remediation plans.

This article introduces the Landlab environment, which is developed in Python, as well as a practical example of soil erosion modeling on slopes over time.