The Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology (CIROH) is helping revolutionize water modeling with NextGen In A Box (NGIAB), a containerized, open-source tool that is making powerful hydrological simulation more accessible than ever.
Until recently, configuring localized water models using the Next Generation Water Resource Modeling framework required specialized knowledge and time-intensive setup. NGIAB changes that by streamlining the process into a 30-minute, ready-to-run package.
“By providing full control over model inputs, configurations and execution, NGIAB enables seamless deployment across personal laptop, cloud services and HPC environments,” said Patel, DevOps manager and enterprise architect for CIROH. “This solution empowers consortium members, partners and researchers to quickly set up and run simulations to drive innovation and push the boundaries of the field.”
At The University of Alabama, NGIAB supports a wide range of hydrologic research across the College of Engineering. Engineering doctoral student Savalan Naser Neisary is using the tool to explore drought-related patterns.
“The main goal of my research is to operationalize the National Water Model and NextGen framework by connecting them to water supply forecasting and long-term water planning under drought conditions,” Neisary said. “I used the NGIAB and its tools, such as calibration and preprocessing, to investigate how the NWM and its future version, NextGen, perform in the western United States with extensive water infrastructure under drought and low flow conditions, and how artificial intelligence can improve their performance.”
Neisary’s research is mainly focused on the Great Salt Lake basin because the Great Salt Lake is suffering from drought and water regulation, resulting in a significant decline in lake elevation.
“I used NGIAB’s preprocessing tools, developed by Josh Cunningham, to prepare input datasets, such as precipitation, temperature, NWM retrospective data and watershed boundaries, as input for the PP-ML framework,” Neisary said. “I also used a calibration tool to calibrate NGIAB parameters and simulate the streamflow. The next steps will be to extend the study area to the Colorado River basin and conduct a similar analysis in Alabama with a focus on flood prediction and flood mapping using NGIAB predictions.”
Looking ahead, CIROH plans to further expand NGIAB’s capabilities. Upcoming enhancements will include new visualization tools, streamlined validation protocols and deeper integration with existing hydrological databases. These improvements aim to keep NGIAB at the center of next-generation water prediction systems.
