USGS Hosts Surface Water Modeling Clearinghouse

Theodore A. Endreny of SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry, Syracuse, New York, 13210-2778

Hydrologists looking for a way to establish or maintain contact with the surface-water modeling community should bookmark the Surface-water quality and flow Modeling Interest Group (SMIG) website at http://smig.usgs.gov/SMIG/ and possibly join the SMIG electronic mailing list. Basic site content includes a library of featured water quality modeling articles, a clearinghouse for model reviews and downloads, and listings of upcoming conferences and training sessions, each with a focus on a surface water resource such as lakes, reservoirs, rivers, estuaries, and watersheds. Although this well organized site is hosted by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and limits feature articles to those with USGS authorship, server logs indicate that non-USGS visitors, including those with international addresses, create most of the site traffic.

The SMIG site is accessible to any Internet browser, has a single editor that performs regular updates on conferences, training classes, and model links, and has a newsletter and new sets of feature articles added biannually in March and September. Formal attention to Web site breadth is encouraged by the presence and input from the SMIG Board of Directors, which represent nearly a dozen USGS water quality and modeling personnel dedicated to the profession.

Dating back to the spring of 1996, SMIG feature articles have numbered between two and six professional papers per issue that discuss current modeling projects, evaluate the capabilities of selected models, provide updates on model development activities, and review model interfaces, algorithms, and visualization techniques. The biannual updates of feature articles may be just the right frequency to keeps visitors returning without fear that SMIG is taking up precious time that should be allotted to required reading responsibilities.

Model descriptions, analysis, comparisons, links, and downloads remain a unique and valuable strength of the SMIG site. Unlike the biannual updated for articles, the site’s Surface water and water quality Models Information Clearinghouse (SMIC) of model descriptions, abstracts, projects using those models, and model downloads may provide reason for more regular site visits. The SMIC user can enter the model database by selecting from an alphabetical list, selecting from a description of model functions or processes, by generating a series of keywords, or by browsing a list of projects that have worked with various models. Although users are encouraged to submit suggestions for new models, the model will only be posted online if it complies with surface water quality modeling criteria set by the SMIG Board of Directors.

A useful SMIG organizational feature includes editorial control of the list serve, subscribed to by approximately 400 people, which distills individual comments into group themes. Thus, subscribers can direct comments to the SMIG editor who then decides group appropriateness and succinctly communicates updates to protect the larger group from a heavy volume of member generated email traffic. Other helpful features on the SMIG site include: the ‘Editors Corner’ with a discussion of the prominent themes in each featured article; the ‘What’s New’ page that quickly orients the regular visitor by highlighting and dating recent SMIG web changes; and the ‘Feedback’ page that solicits visitor comments and then implements useful suggestions. An example of useful feedback was implementation of an automated “pageprint” feature after some visitors complained that the printed articles did not preserve text and figure layout.

One area for improvement on the SMIG site is the limited focus on USGS authored feature articles, which surely denies the visitor of many important projects within the larger scope of surface water modeling. The SMIG Board of Directors may consider inclusion of non-USGS work, however if the articles are not reviewed and approved by the USGS their inclusion remains uncertain.

Still in its formative stages, SMIG is a good resource for learning about and comparing models. Membership in SMIG is open to anyone interested in surface-water modeling. To join, you can just visit the SMIG Web page or you can formally enroll by adding your name to the SMIG electronic mailing list.