Cuwalid Tutorial

This tutorial is to help you run the entire cuwalid system

learn more infomation about the system here

Models

These are the different models found in the cuwalid system

• DRYP – Dryland Water Partitioning model
• StoPET – Stochastic Potential evapotranspiration generator
• Storm – Stochastic Rainfall generator model
• HydroCast – Hydrological based forecasting model
• ImCast – Impact based forecasting model

Preparing Your System for Running CUWALID

IMPORTANT: GDAL is needed to run STORM. This cannot be included in the package because it is not fully compatible with Windows.
You will need to install it manually. If you are using a Conda environment, you can install it using:

conda install gdal "numpy<2.0"

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IMPORTANT: For running stoPET, you need to download additional parameter files.
The system will give you a warning if you try to run it without these files.

Run the following command to download them:

# If using CUWALID as a PyPi package:
python -m cuwalid.tools.download_data

# If using CUWALID from GitHub:
python cuwalid/tools/download_data.py

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Running the Models

To run the models in CUWALID, use the following Python script:

from cuwalid.main_cuwalid import run_cuwalid

run_cuwalid("cuwalid_input.json")

Alternatively, you can run it from the terminal:

# Replace "cuwalid_input.json" with the path to your input JSON file
python -m cuwalid.main_cuwalid cuwalid_input.json

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Input for CUWALID

The CUWALID input file is a combined JSON file containing all the necessary configurations for each model (e.g., DRYP, stoPET, STORM).
For details on each parameter, refer to the individual model tutorials.

An example CUWALID input JSON file looks like this:

{
    "run_STORM": true,
    "run_stoPET": true,
    "run_DRYP": true,
    "run_HydroCast": false,
    "sim_in_parallel": false,
    "historical": {
        "model_name": "historical_model",
        "main_path": "/path/to/historical/data",
        "model_path": "/path/to/model/outputs",
        "postpp_path": "/path/to/post_processing_outputs"
    },
    "forecasting": {
        "forecasting_model_name": "forecast_model",
        "Tercile_Pre_path": "/path/to/precipitation/netcdf",
        "Tercile_Tem_path": "/path/to/temperature/netcdf",
        "threshold_path": "/path/to/threshold/data",
        "season": ["OND"],
        "start_year": 2000,
        "end_year": 2025,
        "year": 2025,
        "NSIM": 10
    }
}

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Parameter Descriptions

General Settings

• run_STORM (Boolean) – Whether to run the STORM simulation (true to enable).
• run_stoPET (Boolean) – Whether to run the stoPET simulation (true to enable).
• run_DRYP (Boolean) – Whether to run the DRYP simulation (true to enable`).
• run_HydroCast (Boolean) – Whether to run the HydroCast simulation (true to enable).
• sim_in_parallel (Boolean) – If false, all processes run sequentially. If true, processes run in parallel (only for DRYP and impact map plotting).

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Historical Data Parameters

• model_name (String) – The name of the historical model.
• main_path (String) – Path to the main directory of the historical dataset.
• model_path (String) – Path to the directory containing historical model outputs.
• postpp_path (String) – Path to post-processed historical simulation outputs.

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Forecasting Parameters

• forecasting_model_name (String) – The name of the forecasting model.
• Tercile_Pre_path (String) – Path to the precipitation tercile NetCDF file (for StoPET).
• Tercile_Tem_path (String) – Path to the temperature tercile NetCDF file (for STORM).
• threshold_path (String) – Path to the threshold NetCDF data.
• season (List of Strings) – Season(s) for the simulation (e.g., ["OND"]).
• start_year (Integer) – First year in the simulation period.
• end_year (Integer) – Last year in the simulation period.
• year (Integer) – The specific year for which the simulation is run.
• NSIM (Integer) – Number of simulation realizations.

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MODEL-SPECIFIC INPUT FILES

DRYP

• input (String) – Path to the DRYP model input JSON.
  See details here.
• settings (String) – Path to the DRYP settings directory.
  See details here.

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STORM

• input (String) – Path to the STORM model input JSON.
  See details here.

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stoPET

• input (String) – Path to the stoPET model input JSON.
  See details here.

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HydroCast

• HyCast (String) – Path to the hydrological forecast input JSON for HyCast.
• ImCast (String) – Path to the impact forecast input JSON for ImCast.