How to use flow-time series datafiles

Flow-time series data files can be used to store multiple flow-time profiles for selection within your simulation. These can be chosen to "override" the flow in the (inflow) boundaries of your river network at simulation runtime.

To do this, your boundaries must be set to Allow parameter overrides, which is checked on by default.

Flow-time series data files can be provided in four formats.

Flood Modeller bespoke format 1

Time in first column and then one or multiple columns of boundary data that each relate to data for a different network boundary node. File also has 4 header rows that are utilised to fully describe each column of data. The first 3 rows are optional, but row 4 must contain the boundary node label that will use the data. When this file is used in a 1D simulation, data for all matching node labels will be used.

Flood Modeller bespoke format 2

Time in first column and then one or multiple columns of boundary data. These data can relate to the same network boundary node or different nodes. This format has 4 header rows. Each column has a unique combination of headers that describe the associated network boundary node (row 2) and the profile title (row 4). The 1D simulation interface allows you to select a combination of profile title and one or multiple node labels to be utilised.

Data extracted from the Irish Flood Studies Update (FSU) web portal

The FSU Web Portal is a free-to-use suite of online design rainfall and flood estimation tools for Ireland. You can access the portal from the Flood Modeller interface using the button provided on the Hydrology tab of the main toolbar. Included on the website is a wizard tool enabling you to generate rainfall and runoff data for a particular catchment within Ireland. These data can easily be copied and pasted into Excel and saved to CSV text format. Flood Modeller can use these data as is, an example is shown below:

The format consists of one or multiple data series representing different return periods (T) and common time data in the first column. Note that the time data is measured relative to the peak and thus starts at a negative number. In addition to the actual data, 2 header rows are expected in a FSU data file; the second row lists the return period for each column of data and the first row is available for any additional comments or descriptions (it is ignored by Flood Modeller). Please note the times can be adjusted within the .csv file so that they are not relative to the peak of the hydrographs, however the header must remain as Hours relative to peak, as shown in the example data file FSU_v2.csv.

ReFH2 data outputs

Utilised directly as Flood Modeller flow time series. The Wallingford HydroSolutions (WHS) ReFH2 software enables you to estimate design and observed flood hydrographs for rural and urbanised ungauged catchments across the UK. The software can output data in a csv format. This has time values in the first column and then a variety of hydrological variables in subsequent columns. These relate to a particular catchment analysis and include rainfall (net and direct), runoff, total flow, baseflows, losses, etc. The first row of the file only is utilised to provide headers for each column of data.

When used in Flood Modeller the 1D model interface enables you to select a total flow field from the ReFH2 data file. There may be one or multiple total flows available depending on the analyses performed in ReFH2 (i.e. multiple return periods).

Examples of each of these formats are provided within the Flow-time_Data folder in the Flood Modeller example data.

How to access the Flood Modeller example data

The example data in Flood Modeller can be saved to your computer directly from within the software. Click on the Start tab and then on Extract Example Data (from the options on the left). This will open a pop-up for you to select a save location for the data.

Adding flow-time series data to your simulation is done within the Files tab of the 1D simulation window.

Click the Add button to open a standard Windows file explorer window and browse to your .csv file. The file will be added to the table with details provided, however each format is handled slightly differently.

Add .csv of Flood Modeller bespoke format 1

This format includes the associated 1D river node label in the column headers. All data series are automatically assigned to the simulation and there are no additional settings required in the table. Click the View Full Report button to check which boundary nodes from the active river network have been identified in the flow data file and thus will be updated in the simulation (only if marked for overwrite in boundary node properties).

Add .csv of Flood Modeller bespoke format 2

Profile titles are read from the selected csv file header rows and added to the dropdown list within the Profile label field in the table. Only one profile can be selected (in this row of the table).

After selecting a profile, the node label field is auto populated with all nodes listed in the header of the csv file that also have data for the selected profile. Note that not all these nodes may be present in the active network. If you click the button provided in the node labels field a new window is displayed in which you can select which nodes to modify with the selected profile.

Note: If a node is still selected that does not appear in the active network then it will just be ignored by the simulation. However, you can utilise the View Report function to see a summary of boundary nodes that will and will not be modified by the simulation.

Add data extracted from the Irish Flood Studies Update (FSU) web portal

Profile titles are read from the FSU csv file header rows and added to the dropdown list within the Profile label field in the table. Only one profile can be selected (in this row of the table).

Click the button in the node label field and a new window is displayed with a dropdown list of boundary nodes available in the active network (you must have the 1D river network active in the map view to define FSU profiles for your model). Select the boundary node to be modified with the selected profile (only one can be selected per FSU entry in the flow time series table).

Add ReFH2 data outputs

Profile titles are read from the ReFH2 csv file header row and added to the dropdown list within the Profile label field in the table. Only one profile can be selected (in this row of the table).

Click the button in the node label field and a new window is displayed with a dropdown list of boundary nodes available in the active network (you must have the 1D river network active in the map view to define ReFH2 profiles for your model). Select the boundary node to be modified with the selected profile (only one can be selected per ReFH2 entry in the flow time series table).

Finally, click the View Full Report button to check how many boundary nodes are affected by your flow-time series file settings and also how many boundary nodes are set to be excluded from the updating process at simulation runtime, i.e. have their allow overwrite setting unticked.

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