History repeats itself — again. Every advance in numerical hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, from the 1970s to the 1980s to the 1990s to the quantum leaps in computational speed, storage, and graphical visualization of today has been accompanied by pronouncements that physically observing hydrodynamic processes in the field and laboratory models is officially obsolete.

Don’t believe it.

At Water Resources Solutions, we have become the region’s authority on predictive water modeling by regarding these two arms of analyzing complex flow problems not as exclusionary, but as complementary. Any river project, regardless of size, can have significant hydraulic uncertainties that can complicate its design. Because the hydraulic analysis conducted is often only a simple one-dimensional analysis, designers compensate for the resulting uncertainty by creating designs that are unnecessarily conservative (read: more expensive). Worse yet, critical hydraulic issues may be completely missed.

WRS's experience proves that the digital and physical approach—when employed together—provide significantly improved hydraulic designs that significantly reduce overall project costs. Furthermore, even though many may grant that using advanced computational methods (i.e. two- or three-dimensional models) or physical models may be justified for large, costly infrastructure projects, they argue such methods are too expensive for smaller projects. On the contrary, it is our experience that a combined physical/numerical modeling approach can significantly improve cost and performance for smaller projects, too. We believe this approach should be employed more frequently, as the added analysis costs are modest, and they are more than offset by savings resulting from significantly reduced uncertainty. Our results speak for themselves--savings have ranged from 30 percent to 70 percent of original project budgets.

Our team members have significant experience with projects associated with PL83-566, Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act. We have completed watershed rehabilitation plans that typically require evaluation of decommissioning alternatives; evaluation of non-structural alternatives, such as downstream property relocation; and structural alternatives, such as dam raises, auxiliary spillway enlargement, and others.