Introduction

CIROH is proud to host the 4th annual Developers Conference at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The conference will be held from May 27 to May 29, 2026. The training tracks for this year’s conference are Flood Inundation Mapping, Hydro Modeling, Machine Learning, HydroInformatics, and Social Science & Communication. Conference details will be updated when event registration opens in February 2026.

Who should attend?

The conference will focus on a wide range of topics relating to hydrological forecasting, particularly of extreme events – in line with CIROH’s current research and development emphasis. These include hydrological modeling (NextGen), flood inundation mapping, hydroinformatics, social science, and community engagement. The conference will offer participants an opportunity to engage with the CIROH community and its federal partners, learn about recent research and development activities, and get hands-on training on emerging models, tools, and services.

Registration is now closed.

Agenda

Career-Building and Educational Field Activity

Silver Lake Nature Trail — Brighton, Utah – Tuesday, May 26, 2026 

Join us for a field-based technical discussion at Silver Lake, an alpine lake and wetland complex in the upper Big Cottonwood Canyon watershed near Brighton, Utah. This educational opportunity will use the site as an outdoor laboratory to examine headwater watershed processes, snowmelt-driven runoff, alpine lake and wetland storage, groundwater–surface water interactions, geomorphic controls on hydrologic connectivity, and the role of high-elevation catchments in downstream water supply.

The discussion will be led by Dr. Ryan Johnson (University of Utah), with assistance from a graduate student, and will emphasize connections among field observations, hydrologic modeling, forecasting, and applied water-resource decision making. The route follows the Silver Lake loop, which includes natural surfaces and boardwalks through lake-margin and wetland environments. The walk is suitable for a range of participants.

• Meet-Up Location: Little America Hotel, 500 Main St, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
• Travel Time: Approximately 40 minutes each way from downtown SLC
  
• Schedule:
  • Meet at Little American Hotel at 3:45 PM
  • Arrive at Silver Lake Nature Trail by 5:00 PM
  • Explore for 1.5–2 hours
  • Depart Silver Lake Nature Trail by 7:00 PM
  • Return to Little American Hotel by 8:00 PM
• Trail Duration: Less than one hour
• Cost: No cost for participants 
  

Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC) — Salt Lake City, Utah – Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Join us for a visit to the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC), where participants will learn about National Weather Service hydrologic operations, engage with staff, and explore current research needs and collaboration opportunities. The visit will be hosted by Elliot Wickham (NOAA Affiliate). Space is limited to 15 participants. 

• Meet-Up Location: Little America Hotel, 500 Main St, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
• Travel Time: Approximately 15 minutes each way from downtown SLC

• Schedule:
  • Meet at Little America Hotel at 2:30 PM
  • Arrive at CBRFC by 2:45 PM
  • Facility tour and discussion from 2:45–4:45 PM
  • Depart CBRFC by 5:15 PM
• Return to Little America Hotel by 5:30 PMVisit Duration: Approximately 2.5–3 hours
• Cost: No cost for participants

The Research Exchange

Please click here to RSVP to the Research Exchange event.

The Research Exchange will be held on Wednesday, May 27 from 6 pm – 9 pm at The Natural History Museum of Utah in the Swaner Forum. 

This event is an opportunity for conference attendees to come together to connect, share ideas, and build meaningful professional relationships. During the event guests will receive free museum admission. 

Venue Address: 
Natural Museum History of Utah
301 Wakara Way 
Salt Lake City, UT 84108

Keynote Presentations

Day 1

---

---

---

---

Day 2

---

---

---

---

---

Day 3

---

---

---

---

Training Tracks

Community NextGen:

 The Community NextGen track will focus on using the Next Generation Water Resources Modeling framework (NextGen) and will give participants hands-on experience with NextGen In A Box (NGIAB), a streamlined deployment solution for NextGen, along with emerging tools in the NextGen ecosystem. Workshops will cover the use of tools to quickly prepare NextGen simulations, the TEEHR Evaluation Tool,  AI-enabled large-domain parameter estimation tools (including differentiable modeling and large-sample emulators), and alternative multi-model approaches for hydrologic modeling. The track will also emphasize opportunities to contribute to the CIROH NextGen Research Datastream (NRDS), a baseline simulation of CONUS hydrology. Sessions will highlight best practices for community development and collaborative efforts within the NextGen platform. Finally, the track will summarize progress in defining CIROH’s set of unsolved problems in large-domain hydrologic modeling and prediction.

Leads: Arpita Patel, University of Alabama, Shaun Carney, RTI International, and Martyn Clark, University of Calgary

---

Flood Inundation Mapping:

The Flood Inundation Mapping (FIM) track offers comprehensive training on the operational OWP HAND-FIM framework as well as other flood inundation mapping models and supporting tools.The workshop structure follows the FIM application and development lifecycle, including FIM compilation, model and database development, evaluation, and real-world application.

Leads: Sagy Cohen, University of Alabama

---

Hydroinformatics and Data Science:

The Hydroinformatics and Data Science track includes workshops focused on data science tools, computing technologies, and community datasets that support CIROH research-to-operations initiatives. Topics may include hydrologic data science, model and data fusion, collaboration via HydroShare, CIROH cloud and high-performance computing resources, GIS and remote sensing, National Water Model visualization tools such as the Tethys Platform, APIs and data access tools, real-time data collection, camera-based monitoring, computer vision applications, and related advancements.

Leads: Patrick Clemins (University of Vermont), Jeffery Horsburgh (Utah State University)

---

Social Science & Communication:

This track focuses on social science approaches for maximizing research impact. Participants will explore research strategies that advance research-to-operations (R2O) and research-to-applications (R2X) and enhance social impact through stakeholder engagement and decision-support development. Workshops will address key skills such as engaging forecast generators and users, assessing social impacts, building community trust, and improving operational outcomes. Attendees will gain practical skills and cross-disciplinary connections to strengthen their research teams.

Leads: George Van Houtven (RTI International), Corinne Schuster-Wallace (University of Saskatchewan)

---

Machine Learning, AI and Remote Sensing in Hydrology:

The AI/ML/RS track will provide hands-on workshop sessions demonstrating machine learning methods using current CIROH modeling projects aimed at advancing AI/ML applications in operational hydrology. This track will include workshops on advanced ML methodologies such as hyperparameter and architecture selection, custom architecture development, training strategies, loss functions, end-to-end development, and AI/ML methods for remote sensing in hydrological modeling. Participants will leave with an improved understanding of data processing, machine learning models and applications, training and evaluation procedures, result visualization, and practical workflows they can apply to their own hydrological modeling objectives.

Leads: Jonathan M. Frame, University of Alabama

Poster and Lightning Talk Presentations

Registration

Early Career Awards

Student Developer Award

The CIROH Annual Student Developer Award will honor a student who has demonstrated an outstanding contribution to CIROH’s research endeavors. The top submission will be invited to provide a keynote presentation at the conference and will receive travel support. Submission is restricted to students from the CIROH Consortium Member and Partner institutions.

Submission Now Closed.

Early Career Paper Award

The CIROH inaugural Early Career Paper Award will honor a student or postdoc who has published a seminal paper associated with a CIROH research project. The top submission will be invited to provide a keynote presentation at the conference and will receive travel support. Submission is restricted to students and postdocs from the CIROH Consortium Member and Partner institutions. The paper must be published (i.e. not under review) in a peer-reviewed journal and include an acknowledgment of the CIROH project.

Submission Now Closed.

Venue

The CIROH Training and Developer’s Conference will be held at the S.J. Quinney College of Law Conference Center at the University of Utah.

Driving Directions and Address 

Address

S.J. Quinney College of Law – Level 6
383 South University Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84112

The College of Law is located on the northeast corner of 400 South and University Street (1400 East). 

From the Airport

As you leave the airport, keep to the left and take the I-80 E ramp to City Center/Ogden/Provo. Keep left at the fork, follow signs for I-80 E and merge onto I-80 E. Continue on I-80 for 5.5 miles to E 600 S/Martin Luther King Jr Blvd exit. Continue straight onto E 600 S/Martin Luther King Jr Blvd for .8 mile. Turn left onto S 1100 E. Continue for .3 mile, then turn right onto 400 S. Continue for .4 mile, turn left into the College of Law Parking Lot.

Free parking is available in the College of Law parking lot, in any “A” or “U” parking stall (no permit is needed). Then enter the east entrance of the College of Law building and continue to the elevators to level 6.

From Downtown

Drive east on South Temple Street to 1300 East Street. Turn right (south) and continue on 1300 East to 400 South. Turn left (east) on 400 South and then go through the traffic light and take the first left after the light into the College of Law Parking Lot.

Free parking is available in the College of Law Parking lot, in any “A” or “U” parking stall (no permit is needed). Then enter the east entrance of the College of Law building and continue to the elevators to level 6.  

Parking

Available for free just outside (east) of the building. If the lot is full, paid parking is available across the street at the stadium parking lot.

Public Transportation 

• TRAX (commuter train) “University” red line to the Stadium stop and walk a half block north. http://www.rideuta.com/
• For other public transit options use UTA’s Trip Planner.
• The law school is on the Red Route for the University’s free campus shuttles
• (College of Law stop). Live Tracker information is availableat http://www.uofubus.com/

Campus Map

For more detailed information about the University of Utah Campus Map.

Lodging

There are many lodging options in Salt Lake City. If you plan to use public transportation you may want to consider booking a hotel in proximity to the TRAX (commuter train) “University” red line.

Organizing Committee

Sagy Cohen – University of Alabama
Brock Parker – University of Alabama, Communications
Lanna Nations – University of Alabama, AWI Education
Sarah Sherrill – University of Alabama, Event Coordination
Ryan Johnson – University of Utah, Host
Arpita Patel – University of Alabama, Hydro Modeling Track, computation
Martyn Clark – University of Calgary, Hydro Modeling Track
Shaun Carney – RTI International, Hydro Modeling Track
Jonathan Frame – University of Alabama, ML track
Juli Scamardo - Utah State University, Early Career. Jeff Horsburgh – Utah State University, HydroInformatics Track
Patrick Clemins – University of Vermont, HydroInformatics Track
Corinne Schuster-Wallace – University of Saskatchewan, Social Science and Communication Track
George Van Houtven – RTI International, Social Science and Communication Track
Ed Clark – Director, NOAA National Water Center