March 16, 2023

Tupac Cloud T.7: How to download your Tupac Cloud project and run it locally with Python and Flopy

March 16, 2023/ Saul Montoya

Tupac Cloud is based on Python and Flopy and every project can be downloaded to your machine for special analysis, furter Modflow 6 feature implementation, machine learning based calibration, or just because a local backup copy is required. This tutorial shows the complete procedure to download a Tupac Cloud project, the executable implementation, the scripts to run the flopy code and well as a description of the different files and folders from a model project.

March 14, 2023

Tupac Cloud T.6: Transient simulation of tunnel interaction with the groundwater flow regime

March 14, 2023/ Saul Montoya

This is an applied example of the impact trough time of a tunnel over the regional groundwater flow regime. The model has 5 stress periods with two variants of the drain (DRN) package implemented in Tupac Cloud. The tutorial covers all steps from model construction, boundary condition setup, model run and output data analysis.

March 08, 2023

Tupac Cloud T.5: Groundwater modeling of a construction site dewatering with well and trenches

March 08, 2023/ Saul Montoya

Applied case for the evaluation of a drainage schema on a construction site with Tupac Cloud. The model has three stress periods where the drainage schema starts with well pumping for 10 days and trench drainage with pumping for another 10 days. Results from the water balance were analyzed as well as the final distribution of head on the proposed construction site.

February 22, 2023

Tupac Cloud T.4: Transient simulation of the trench excavation impact on a coastal aquifer

February 22, 2023/ Saul Montoya

Local scale modeling of a 4 stage trench excavation on a coastal aquifer. The main objective of this modeling work is assessing the impact of the excavation on the nearby groundwater flow regime. The modeling work was done entirely with the tools, charts and tables from Tupac Cloud.

December 09, 2022

Tupac Cloud Beta Tutorial 3: 3D voronoi model mesh generation as Vtk

December 09, 2022/ Saul Montoya

From the latest developments in our codes, MF6 and Flopy we have created tools in Tupac Cloud for 3d mesh generation as Vtk files. This is an applied example of this functionality based on a dataset for river - aquifer interaction where the resulting Vtk are plotted on Paraview.

December 07, 2022

Introducing Tupac Cloud: An online tool for groundwater modeling

December 07, 2022/ Saul Montoya

Tupac Cloud is our developing online groundwater modeling platform. Models on Tupac Cloud are based on Voronoi meshes and constructed in MODFLOW 6 DISV from Flopy scripts. The whole project will have lot of tools and integrations with QGIS and Paraview, this is just an example of mesh generation for an applied case of river aquifer interaction.

August 09, 2022

How to create quadtree refinements for MODFLOW 6 models from multiple shapefiles - Tutorials

August 09, 2022/ Saul Montoya

Quadtree refinements are available for Modflow 6 models in the latest versions of Model Muse. This tool can be inplemented for many spatial objects as points, lines or polygons where you can specify the refinement level for each layer separately. We have done an applied case of mesh refinement of a regional model where the river network, observation points and tunnel aligment were defined as refinement objects.

July 21, 2022

3D visualization of voronoi gridded models with Model Viewer for Modflow 6 - Tutorial

July 21, 2022/ Saul Montoya

Model Viewer for Modflow 6 was launched in April 2022 and it is a version of Model Viewer customized to display the features, grid and results of MODFLOW 6 models. We have done an applied case for the visualization of a MODFLOW 6 DISV model that has a voronoi mesh. The tutorial covers the steps to visualize the model grid lines, grid shell, isosurfaces, color grid, flow directions among other visualization options.

July 11, 2022

Interactive cross section generator for a voronoi gridded Modflow 6 model - Tutorial

July 11, 2022/ Saul Montoya

We are allways on the research of new visualization tools for groundwater models and that would imply the review of different apis, codes and backends. This time we have done an applied example for the interactive generation of cross section from a Modflow 6 model with a voronoi mesh on a Jupyter notebook. The cross section shows the model grid, head distribution as a color grid and contours and its generated from the line delineation over the 2d view of the model grid. The code can be easily adapted to any Modflow model by editing the Python and Flopy code.

July 06, 2022

Regional groundwater Modflow 6 model with Voronoi Mesh - Tutorial

July 06, 2022/ Saul Montoya

We have developed a version of our Angascancha basin case study that runs on MODFLOW 6 with discretized by vertices (DISV). The model implements a Voronoi mesh that is generated from the basin boundary and river network and the refinement levels are defined by a minimum and maximum cell size together with determined refinement steps. The tutorial is complete in all the steps involving the model discretization, construction, simulation and visualization.

June 06, 2022

River-Well-Aquifer Geospatial Groundwater Flow Model with Voronoi Mesh - Tutorial

June 06, 2022/ Saul Montoya

This is an applied example of a fully geospatial groundwater flow model with the MODFLOW 6 Disv discretized by vertices option. Model was constructed with Python and Flopy from a series of shapefiles and it has a progressive refinement for well and river boundary conditions. Regional flow has been simulated as a General Head Boundary and plotting options were developed for the grid and model output representation on areal view and cross section.

October 04, 2021

New website! MODFLOW Questions and Answers: ask anything on groundwater modeling

October 04, 2021/ Saul Montoya

Until now we had limited options to provide specific support in groundwater modeling. We know that modeling requires the review of extensive documentation and practical work with the software and sometimes or most times we don't have the time to sort things out.

September 15, 2021

Example of Seawater Intrusion Modeling with Modflow 6, Model Muse and Flopy - Tutorial

September 15, 2021/ Saul Montoya

MODFLOW 6 implements the Buoyancy package for the simulation of variable density and seawater intrusion cases. The tools are implemented in the Python package Flopy, however the workflow has changed substantially from the previous models of flow and transport. We have developed an applied case seawater intrusion model on a regular geometry model constructed with Model Muse for flow and Flopy for transport.

August 23, 2021

What to do when your MODFLOW MT3D contaminant plume doesn’t migrate?

August 23, 2021/ Saul Montoya

This is a problem that every hydrogeologist - numerical modeler has faced many times over his/her professional career independently from the theoretical background and skills with the code, graphical user interface or Python library.

We don’t know why groundwater “flows” and a contaminant plume “migrates” when both move on the aquifer system. After you construct you model geometry, setup the flow boundary condition, specify your transport package, define your contaminant sources, run your MODFLOW flow model and then run your MT3D model (or even your MT3DMS model) you will find that there is no plume, none, nada, nichts.

August 16, 2021

Is glTF an alternative to VTK for the representation of voronoi mesh Modflow6 models?

August 16, 2021/ Saul Montoya

Representation of geospatial objects in 2D are well covered by the GIS software and standards where we have powerful tools and interchangeable spatial files, however when we work on 3D objects the universe of software and tools is like a jungle with a wide variety of issues. We will always consider 3D as the ultimate representation of an object using a computer, by sure the holograms and augmented reality can improve the way we interact with a object geometry, but since we are not in the common near future we will give much effort to the representation of these objects in our computer screens, tables and cellphones.

July 02, 2021

How to insert and read Observation Points (OBS6) in Modflow 6 with Model Muse and Flopy - Tutorial

July 02, 2021/ Saul Montoya

Modflow 6 has a new approach in setting up observation points and it's essentially different to the previous versions. The OBS6 package works not only with heads and drawdowns but also with flows, so it's also possible to calibrate the model against baseflow or any other recorded flow from a boundary condition directly. We have created an applied case of the implementation of piezometers in a hillslope groundwater flow model in Modflow 6 and Model Muse. The tutorial covers all the steps related to the implementation of the observed points in Model Muse as well as the comparison among simulated and observed heads through scripts in Flopy.

June 15, 2021

A place to find MODFLOW executables for any operating system: Windows, Mac or Linux

June 15, 2021/ Saul Montoya

A normal distribution of the core versions of MODFLOW as well as its variants, and Modflow-Based particle tracking and solute transport models includes not only the executables for Windows, but also the documentation, source code, test problems and other utility programs. Working with the multiple tools of Modflow implies a huge collection of files that aren’t useful for the simulation itself if you are working on Windows. Modelers working on Mac or Linux had to compile our executable by themselves.

June 01, 2021

What we dont see in the development of open source software for groundwater modeling

June 01, 2021/ Saul Montoya

Usually we dedicate much time to developing tutorials and sometimes, just a few times, we actually write an article on this blog. Lately, our aim to discover and code is much greater than our impulse to give our opinion. This post is a special case where we write something without knowing if it is written because we are motivated or because there is something that needs to be written. In any case, writing this post doesn’t make us more free or happy... “Es macht uns nicht mehr zufrieden”... because we don´t know much about some things related to human nature.

February 01, 2021

Interactive MODFLOW MT3D transport model visualization with Flopy, Ipywidgets and Voila - Tutorial

February 01, 2021/ Saul Montoya

Representation and analysis of flow and transport results is a challenge for groundwater modelers. Aspects such as speed, compatibility, data format and visualization options are key in the 2D/3D representation of head and concentration on model cells. Under the Jupyterlab framework new tools have been developed that can be useful to represent model results on a user friendly way .

This time we have done a tutorial for the interactive representation of a contaminant plume in Jupyterlab; modeling was done with Modflow Nwt and Mt3d, representation was done with Matplolib, Ipywidgets and Voila.

January 18, 2021

Which are the challenges for model calibration in MODFLOW 6?

January 18, 2021/ Saul Montoya

MODFLOW 6 is the latest version of MODFLOW; we can’t frame this version as new because it has been released in May 2017 when QGIS 3 wasn’t even released or Python 3.6 was the latest version. On the hydrogeological perspective changes don't come as fast as expected and the amount of users of MODFLOW 6 is increasing but there are limitations on the pre/post processing tools that can take the best of the software for the general public.

Besides the philosophical discussion if a model can be “calibrated” or just “validated” there are some changes on the structure of MODFLOW 6 that bring challenges on the traditional way of model calibration.

October 19, 2026

Diploma in Groundwater Modeling with Python and FloPy - Asynchronous

FloPy is the Python library that builds and executes MODFLOW models; this library has been enhanced to provide full support of MODFLOW 6 with most of its recent development is related to functionality for MODFLOW 6, tools to use vector and raster spatial data and common plotting and export functionality.

May 8, 2024

25% Off: Diploma in Applied Groundwater Modeling with MODFLOW and Model Muse - Asynchronous

We have designed a complete program on MODFLOW with Model Muse that ranges from the essential topics in flow and transport modeling to applied cases of regional modeling, infrastructure projects, and seawater intrusion. MODFLOW with Model Muse is a recent open-source software that provides various tools for simulating the groundwater flow regime in different environments.

30% Off: Program in Hydrological Modeling with SWAT+ and QGIS - Asynchronous

This program is designed to provide systematical learning from the most basic and general topics to intermediate and advanced topics, allowing the student to understand the various steps in developing hydrological models using the SWAT+ interface for QGIS. This program has a series of theoretical and practical concepts that allow the student to process spatial data, manage meteorological databases, build hydrological models, develop sensitivity analyses, and perform manual and automatic calibrations using versatile tools such as SWAT+ Toolbox, SQLite, and Python.

October 26, 2026

Integration of HEC-RAS with MODFLOW using mf6Voronoi Studio and Model Muse - Tutorial

In this tutorial on the integration of HEC-RAS with MODFLOW using mf6Voronoi Studio and Model Muse, we will develop a complete step-by-step practical example, starting from an already built unsteady model in HEC-RAS from which we will export key depth and hydraulic elevation data for a specific datetime, information from which we will generate the optimized simulation voronoi mesh that we will later import into ModelMuse to structure our groundwater model incorporating River and General Head Boundary (GHB) boundary conditions, concluding with a detailed analysis of the distribution of hydraulic heads and the evaluation of the dynamic interaction between the different sections of the river and the aquifer system.

groundwaterModelingInflowInfraestructureTunnel_en_12.png

October 23, 2026

Infrastructure Tunnel Impact Modeling on Groundwater Flow System with MODFLOW6 & Model Muse - Tutorial

This tutorial demonstrates how to model the hydrogeological impact of an infrastructure tunnel on a regional groundwater flow system using MODFLOW 6 and Model Muse. The exercise simulates a four-year tunnel excavation process through a mountainous terrain bounded by two creeks, evaluating how gradual underground construction affects local water table levels and regional flow dynamics. The model uses an unstructured discretization grid (DISV) with Quadtree refinement along the river and tunnel paths, also the model incorporates local geology, dynamic drain boundaries, and transient stress periods to capture the groundwater system's response over time.

dataAnalysisOnlineTemperatureSensorThingAPIPython_en_12.png

October 1, 2026

Smart analysis of online temperature sensor data with SensorThingsAPI and Python - Tutorial

This tutorial demonstrates how to connect to a SensorThings API FROST server using Python to retrieve, inspect, and visualize IoT sensor datastreams. After setting up the server connection and querying datastream details such as units and observation counts, the notebook extracts time-series observations using paginated REST requests and loads them into a Pandas DataFrame. Following the data preparation phase, the script produces a series of continuous time-series line charts using Matplotlib and Seaborn, displaying the chronological trend of air temperature measurements recorded over time.

riverAquiferGeospatialGroundwaterModelmfVoronoiStudio_en_12.png

September 30, 2026

River Aquifer Groundwater Flow Model with mf6Voronoi Studio and Model Muse - Tutorial

This tutorial demonstrates how to build and simulate a groundwater model focused on river-aquifer interactions using open-source software. The workflow begins in mf6Voronoi Studio, where a Voronoi grid mesh is generated to capture complex spatial geometries efficiently. The mesh is then imported into ModelMuse, where key aquifer properties and essential boundary conditions—including general head, river, well, recharge, and evapotranspiration—are configured. After running the model, the simulated results are evaluated through an analysis of the water balance and head distribution.

September 29, 2026

Mesh Generation of Regional MODFLOW 6 Groundwater Flow Models with mf6Voronoi - Tutorial

In this tutorial we introduce mf6Voronoi, a specialized tool for generating optimized Voronoi meshes for regional groundwater models capable of spanning thousand of square kilometers. The video demonstrates how to set up and run a Python script using Anaconda Prompt, leveraging Dask parallel processing to refine mesh resolution along key rivers and riparian ecosystems while maintaining a coarse discretization elsewhere. By utilizing multi-core computing, the workflow reduces total mesh generation time by approximately 40–45%, delivering a high-resolution, multi-scale MODFLOW 6 mesh consisting of over 150,000 cells in just a few minutes.

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