Final Project in Water Resources
Engineering
GAMES Model interface Application:
Extending the Capabilities of the GAMES model for
Erosion and Sediment Loading Analysis
By: Nabil Allataifeh
Date: December 19th, 2013
Acknowledgement
• My great appreciation to Professor Ramesh Rudra for
the guidance and effort in delivering the application.
• As well to Professor Trevor Dickinson for attending this
presentation.
• My sincere thanks go to Chin Dai and Kishor Panjabi
• My final but great thanks will go to my wife
Outline:
• Introduction
• The Project Purpose
• Review and Background
• Methodology
• Results and Discussion / Example Project
• Conclusions
Introduction
• Soil erosion:
– Removal process of soil particles by water or wind
– The rate exceeds the formation of soil rate
• A major environmental and agricultural problem
– Reduced productivity
• Soil become water deficit and/or nutrient deficit.
– social and economical adverse effects
• Extensive adverse impact on the crop production.
• Environmental results such as pollution.
Introduction cont…
• Highly noticeable with agricultural land
• More common with areas that have high
slopes.
• Ancient Romans once had a food supply from
North African regions that now become
desert.
Introduction cont …
• Soil erosion quantitative assessment is needed to
- Find the extent/magnitude of soil erosion problems
- Create management strategies
• Reported factors influencing soil erosion
- Steep slopes,
- Bare soil compared to covered soil
- Soil structure and texture.
Introduction cont …
• Many practicing modeling:
– To depict the natural erosion process
– To solve problems associated with soil erosion
• Physically based erosion models have been
developed
– CREAMS, GLEAMS, EUROSEM and WEPP.
Project Purpose
• Improve the current GIS/GAMES model interface
– Time consuming
– More susceptible to human errors.
• Produce a new GIS/GAMES model interface
–
–
–
–
Efficient
Automated
Processes are centralized from one location
User friendly application.
Review and Background
• Soil Erosion Modeling
• The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE)
• The GMAES Model
• Geographical Information System (GIS)
• Programming Language and Development
Environment
Soil Erosion Modeling
• The importance of soil erosion problem had
escalated the attempt to produce a powerful
mathematical soil erosion models
• Soil erosion modeling has been identified as an
important technique to practice conservation and
planning practices.
• Use of models within the GIS is a cost effective
method
Soil Erosion Modeling cont…
• Integrating GIS provide a rapid assessment of erosion
on spatial basis.
• GIS would be of great help in using digital elevation
model (DEM) in soil erosion assessment.
• GIS techniques to calculate several products from a
DEM
– Slope gradient a dominant factor in the erosion process,
– Overland flow rate
– Drainage direction
The Universal Soil Loss Equation
(USLE)
• It is an empirical model and does not involve a
spatial resolution
• Developed based on a set of data from the
eastern half of the USA.
• The USLE, its revised (RUSLE) and modified
(MUSLE) versions, are still used in many
studies of soil loss
USLE cont...
• On annual rainfall
A= R. K. LS. C. P
where;
R = rainfall erosivity factor,
K = soil erodibility factor,
LS = slope gradient and slope length factor,
C = land use or management factor,
P = support practices factor
• On seasonal rainfall
As= 2.242. Rs. Ks. LS. Cs. Ps
The subscript s relates to the seasonal aspect.
The GAMES Model
• GAMES: the Guelph Model for Evaluating Effects of Agricultural
Management Systems on Erosion and Sedimentation
• Utilizing the USLE equation based on a seasonal estimates rather than
annual estimates
• The model developed as a screening tool for nonpoint source pollution
management for an entire watershed.
• The theory behind the model is to find the percent of soil loss delivered on
a seasonal base to the downstream
– Estimated by the application of microscopic delivery ratio.
– This ratio incorporates
• The surface roughness
• Land use characteristics
• The hydrological conditions along the water flow path.
The GMAES Model cont...
• The input for the GAMES model contain many important
parameters:
–
–
–
–
–
Soil erodibility
Land use
Slope length and gradient
Support practice factors to control erosion
The area and the direction of the flow for each cell that has been
delineated in the watershed.
• GAMES output for each cell represent
–
–
–
–
Soil loss and soil loss rate
Delivery ratio to the adjacent cell
Delivery ratio to the stream
Sediment loads and sediment load rates.
The GMAES Model cont...
• It consist of three main components:
– Soil Loss Component
– Sediment delivery component.
– Problem classification component.
The Soil Loss Component
• Developed based on the application of the
USLE equation with the consideration of the
seasonal base
As = 2.242Rs.Ks.Cs.LS.P
The Sediment Delivery Component
• Developed on the assumptions
– The factors affecting the delivery of the water
suspended sediments are:
• velocity of fluid
• flow path length
• the physical characteristics of the sediments.
– Sediments are spatially uniform for small agricultural
watershed
– The hydraulic effects are negligible.
The Sediment Delivery Component
cont...
•
The sediment yield from each cell to the stream:
SDs = As*DRs
•
The Sediment yield at the outlet of the watershed as:
where
Asi = seasonal soil loss for the ith cell (t/ha)
DRsi = seasonal delivery ratio for the ith cell
Areai = the area of the ith field (ha)
• The DRSi = α[
]β
where;
nsi = seasonal surface roughness of the ith cell
Si= the surface slope
Hcsi = is the seasonal hydrologic coefficient of the ith cell
Lsi = length of seasonal overland flow of the ith cell
α and β = constants
Problem classification component
• The watershed sub-catchments identified
based on the rate of soil erosion and sediment
yield rates to 4 categories:
– I for high sediment and high erosion rates
– II for low Sediment and high erosion rates
– III for high sediment and low erosion rates
– IV for low sediment and erosion rates.
Geographical Information System
(GIS)
• GIS a group of computer tools as hardware and
software that used to collect, store, retrieve,
manipulate, transform and display spatial data.
• GIS has the power of interacting with models
– Models has been built into the GIS as an interface to easily
interact with the GIS power and using sets of data from the
map.
– Utilize the output of a GIS processing as an input for the
model.
Geographical Information System
(GIS)
• ESRI is one of the leaders and first initiative of
GIS work since 1969, considered the leader in
the world of GIS improvement and
development
• ESRI in their recent release ArcGIS 10.3 serving
the world with four major products: Arc
Catalogue, ArcMap, ArcScene, and ArcGlope.
Programming Language and
Development Environment
• The interface has been developed using the
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Development
Environment
• The C#.NET programming language has been
used inside the Visual Studio
Methodology
• The Study Area
• The Input layers to ArcMap
• The output layers from ArcMap first model
• The Input and output files for the GAMES Model
• The model output import to ArcMap
• The final Output of the ArcMap
3.1. The Study Area
mean prec.: 840-880 mm
100-200 mm as snow
drainage area 143 km2
soil of silt loam type
mean Temp 6-9 °C
annual evapo. 65%
Adopted from GRCA (http:\\www.grandriver.ca)
The land use in the area is dominated by agriculture
The primary source of contamination is agricultural runoff
Adopted from Chen 2006
The Input layers in ArcMap
• The preliminary input for an ArcMap project require five input layers and 1
custom toolbox. The layers are:
–
–
–
–
–
Rivers
Study area
Soil
Land use
Digital elevation model.
• The toolbox contains 5 models to handle the project.
–
–
–
–
–
Produce the required tables to create the input for the GAMES model.
Import the output from the GAMES model, process it and create new layers.
Applying symbology to the soil erosion rate layer and sediment load rate.
Create raster layers from the soil erosion rate layer and sediment load rate.
Categorize the watershed into four area problems.
The output from ArcMap first Model
•
The Study Area Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
•
The Study area Land Use Map
•
The Study area Soil Types Map
•
The study area Slope Map
•
The Study area river network
•
The Study area Catchment Flow Network
•
The study area Drainage Lines
•
The study area flow start and end points
GAMES Model Input and output Files
• The GAMES model require an input file in the form of
space delimited text file (.DAT)
• The file prepared by extracting the required field
from the ArcMap first model output
• The GAMES model will create an output text file that
will have the cell erosion data.
The model output file processing in
ArcMap
• The final excel file from the GAMES model will be
imported to the ArcMap project and Joined to the
Dissolved Catchments layer.
• A new two layers created:
– Soil erosion rate
– Sediment yield rate
• Create the Raster Maps of Soil Erosion and
Sediment Yield Rate Maps
The Final output of ArcMap models
• The final step in the project will identify the problem
areas in the watershed for high soil erosion rate and
high sediment yield rate.
– Reclassify the Soil Erosion and the Sediment Yield Rate
maps based on average tolerance of 3.00 t/ha for the
erosion rate and 0.50 t/ha for sediment rate
– Identify the watershed into 4 categories:
•
•
•
•
I: high sediment and high erosion rates
II: low Sediment and high erosion rates
III: high sediment and low erosion rates
IV: low sediment and erosion rates
Results and Discussion
Example project
•
First time users
•
Running the first model in ArcMap
•
Prepare the input for the GAMES model
•
Process the input file through the GAMES Model
•
Prepare the model output to be imported to ArcMap
•
Process the model output in ArcMap
•
Create the soil erosion and sediment yield rate maps
•
Identify the soil erosion and sediment yield areas of problems in the study area.
First Time users
• The supplied zipped file has to be extracted to the desktop
• The user should have enough privileges to be able to copy
executable files to the C drive (a requirement for the
GAMES model).
• The interface handle both ArcGIS 9.3 and ArcGIS 10.0
• Copy files and directories to the C drive
• Run the example project option from the C drive
Running an Example Project
Running the First Model in ArcMap
Running the First Model in ArcMap
Running the First Model in ArcMap
cont…
• Generating the Study Area Layers
• Create the Flow Network and the Catchments
• Creating the Tables to be used to generate the
GAMES model input file
The ArcMap First Model Output
The ArcMap First Model Output
cont…
The ArcMap First Model Output
cont…
The ArcMap First Model Output
cont…
The ArcMap First Model Output
cont…
The ArcMap First Model Output
cont…
The ArcMap First Model Output
cont…
Prepare the GAMES Model Input File
Prepare the GAMES Model Input File
cont…
Starts the GAMES Model
Process the input file in the GAMES
Model
• The .dat file is the input to the GAMES model
• Specifying the mode: analytical or calibrated
• Input and output files
• The output file will contain the data about
each catchment
Process the input file in the GAMES
Model
Prepare the model output to be
imported to ArcMap
Process the GAMES model output in
ArcMap
• second model
– Add the GAMES output file to the ArcMap project
– Join on the dissolved catchment to add the
information for each catchment or cell.
– Create two feature layers:
• Soil erosion rate
• Sediment yield rate.
Create the soil erosion and sediment
yield rate raster
• Third model
– Add the symbology to the two layers created
• Soil erosion rate
• Sediment yield rate.
• Fourth model
– Create the Raster Maps
• Soil Erosion rate
• Sediment Yield Rate
The soil erosion rate map
The sediment yield rate map
Identify the soil erosion and
sediment yield areas of problems
• Fifth Model
– Reclassify both layers from previous step based on
• Average tolerance of 3.00 t/ha for the erosion rate
• Average tolerance 0.50 t/ha for sediment rate.
– The watershed will be identified into 4 categories:
•
•
•
•
I for high sediment and high erosion rates
II for low Sediment and high erosion rates
III for high sediment and low erosion rates
IV for low sediment and erosion rates
soil erosion and sediment yield rates
areas of problems cont…
CONCLUSIONS
• The application is an improvement of the
previously developed application.
• The new application is a fully automated tool
and will ease the user experience.
• The new map identified four problem
categories in the watershed
CONCLUSIONS cont…
• The new application were:
– Able to achieve an output with a minimal time span
– Eliminate the sources of error
• The new application can be of help for analyst to
identify the watershed areas with high erosion
rate.
• Can be of great help to adopt certain watershed
management practices to eliminate the soil
erosion.
Recommended future advancement
and development
• Create a more advanced tool to be imported to
ArcMap as an interface or extension
• Some of the thoughts that can be helpful are
using the ArcGIS Geoprocessing power (python
scripting)
• The first step might be decoding the GAMES
model to have it re-written in a modern
programming language for more convenience.
Questions