A physically based approach to modelling distributed snowmelt in a small alpine catchment

The invention provides a means of interacting with a subset of a large amount of related information that assists in providing a user with the overall understanding necessary to execute rapid and knowledgeable decision-making. It consists of a spreadsheet-like client application which interacts with a planning data repository (PDR) and its associated computing resources. All of the data used in computing the values shown in the spreadsheet cells are derived directly from the PDR. Any changes made by the user to the displayed data are sent to the PDR and, when validated, incorporated into the overall data following a two-step process of 'calculate' and 'save'. At the user's desktop machine, the user views a window which contains information temporarily stored locally within the client computer for use by a script application. Not all of the information stored for the script application is necessarily visible on the display at any one time, and scroll bars are provided to permit the user to view information stored but not currently visible. The data shown on the client computer screen may be a representation of a planning cube (or data cube) that is a subset of the Planning Data Repository data. In a further embodiment of the invention the user is able to change the various relationships amongst the data and these alterations sent to the PDR for computation.