Pathways to using multi-model mosaics for operational hydrologic prediction

The Next Generation Water Resources Modelling Framework (NextGen) uses a mosaic of multiple models to represent the diversity of hydrologic processes across large domains. The use of multi-model mosaics is a new paradigm for large-domain hydrologic modeling, and there is hence limited understanding of the challenges in applying the NextGen framework for operational prediction. To bridge the research-operations gap, this project seeks to identify effective pathways for the operational implementation of the NextGen multi-model mosaic paradigm. The research focuses on developing methods to identify suitable modeling approaches in different parts of the modeling domain, developing methods to estimate parameters for the multi-model mosaic, and documenting the scientific validity and operational feasibility of alternative configurations of the multi-model mosaic. The expected impact of this project is identifying effective operational instantiations for future versions of the National Water Model.