Find the documentation here.
WaterGAP is a global-scale hydrological simulation software for quantifying water flows and storages on all continents of the Earth. It is used to assess water availability and water stress for both humans and non-human biota.
WaterGAP has a leading role among global hydrological models. However, the research software, which has been modified by many PhD and postdoc researchers over more than 20 years, is still in a prototype state. It has never been refactored to fit a carefully planned software architecture, and software documentation is very limited. The software resembles a collection of “script-like” files that each have close to 10,000 lines of code without any separation of concerns. Therefore, it is currently not possible to hand the software to researchers from other groups to replicate and understand the results or to extend the product for their own research. Due to the complexity of global hydrological models and the importance of assessments and projections related to water resources, it is essential to have research software that is of a quality that enables the reproducibility of results.
The project goal is to rewrite the software with a modular structure using a modern programming language and providing extensive documentation. Then, it will be possible for other researchers to run our global hydrological modelling software by themselves, to reproduce our results or investigate the impact of data and algorithm modifications on the results. The research community can compare algorithms, check the consistency and accuracy of our computational approach and find possible errors in the software more easily.
This project is done in cooperation between the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Ruhr-University Bochum. For more information on the project and a more comprehensive description find the official project summary here.
ReWaterGap receives funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG). For further information, see the official project description here.
- Principal investigator: Prof. Dr. Petra Döll
- Principal investigator: Prof. Dr. Martina Flörke
- Lead software architect: Dr. Robert Reinecke
- Lead Programmer: Emmanuel Nyenah
- Programming of reGWSWUSE: Lasse Nissen
- Editing: Leon Mühlenbruch
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