HydroConnector: A tool for estimating stage height of ungaged river site based on standardized hydro web services and HPG model

Recently, River Information System that integrates a variety of riverine information has been widely developed driven by information technologies. In Korea, massive riverine data also have been incorporated into various specific River Information Systems, where such in-situ data and information system triggers new needs for active or real-time uses of them for numerical modeling or more advanced post-processing as a next step. Based on such new needs, the present study attempts to develop a software called HydroConnector that dynamically integrates river-based numerical modeling or post-processing with in-situ data based upon data searching technique using hydro web service built on top of a ODM-based database following a CUAHSI standard. It fundamentally differs from the conventional direct access to the database for acquiring a given period of dataset. Such a hydro web service and ODM-based database were built by utilizing existing real-time stream gaging data and they are dynamically connected with a HPG model that estimates stage height for a ungaged site. As a result, the newly developed HydroConnector is very intuitive for the user due to user-friendly GUI and facilitates modeling processes by automatically connecting remotely located data and a specific numerical model without further laborious data pre- and post-processing. In fact, HPG model consists of a pre-established diagram based on the simulated outputs from one-dimensional river models such as HEC-RAS operated for the possible flow conditions, and it is able to estimate the stage height for a ungaged site driven by the given downstream stage height and upstream flow discharge. The HydroConnector incorporates both the web service and the HPG model, which enables to make dynamic data pre-processing adjusted for the numerical model, and automatically operate the HPG model to finally provide the targeted ungaged stage height.