WASSI Web Application

The USDA Forest Service Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center (EFETAC) has developed a water balance model (WaSSI) to evaluate the effects of climate, land use, and population change on water resources, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity in the conterminous U.S. The model has also been applied successfully in Mexico and Brazil to address region-specific water resource and carbon issues. WaSSI model results provide useful data for resource managers to make informed management decisions in light of changing environmental conditions. In addition, educators, researchers, NGOs, and the general public could use the model to gain insight on the effects of global change on water, carbon, and biodiversity at both local and continental scales. To facilitate delivery of WaSSI outputs to these groups, EFETAC developed a web-based application capable of running the US and Mexico regions (http://www.wassi.sgcp.ncsu.edu:8083). This application allows the user to define a scenario, view inputs for a selected location, and view time series charts of model output based on the user defined scenario. Additional refinements to this web application are desired, including: 1. Correction of known issues and addition of minor enhancements 2. Develop connectivity to Mapping Tool application (developed concurrently under a separate contract) The contractor shall provide services to enhance a user-friendly interface for the WaSSI Water Supply and Demand model. Services shall be furnished in consultation with the EFETAC scientists. Work will begin as soon as possible after award, and be completed by March, 31, 2012. Hardware Requirements The WaSSI application will be served on a Windows web server as described below. Type: Dell PowerEdge T110 Operating System: Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition Processor: Intel Xeon X3430, 2.4 GHz, 8M Cache, Turbo Memory: 4GB Memory (4x1GB), 1333MHz, Single Ranked UDIMM Web Server: Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5 or above Hard Drives: 1-2 TB RAID Drives Software Requirements Existing Web Application: Python 2.6 with Pylons 1.0.0 and matplotlib Map Viewer: ArcGIS Server 10, Flex ARCGIS WebAPI, Flex Viewer Database: Microsoft SQLServer 2005 Application Description The existing WaSSI web application acts as a GUI front-end to the WaSSI Ecosystem Services Model FORTRAN program. Model inputs are stored in CSV text files on the webserver. The application Input Viewer calls these input files to generate time series charts of model inputs. The application Simulation Tool accepts user-defined scenario specifications, writes these specifications to a model input text file, and calls the WaSSI FORTRAN executable file. The FORTRAN executable performs the simulation based on the user-defined scenario, and writes model output to CSV text files. The application Output Viewer calls these output files to generate time series charts of model outputs. Model outputs are written to several comma separated text files, each with a unique 32-character user identifier in the file name that links the output file to the user's session. When the user performs multiple successive simulations, these text files are overwritten by the output from the most recent model run. These files are stored on the web server during the user's session and are not available after they leave the site.