Three-dimensional Free-Surface Flow Model Verification and Validation: Past, Present, and Future Directions

The verification and validation of three-dimensional free-surface flow models has been an active area of research since the emergence of three-dimensional ocean, estuarine, and river models in the late 1980s. Within the ASCE Committee on Computational Hydraulics, initial efforts focused on the collection of field datasets for model evaluation in the early 1990s. Efforts were expanded to address terminology, analytical, laboratory, and field datasets as well as to establish systematic procedures for model verification and validation as documented by Wang et al. (2009). Here, we review these previous and recent efforts within the ASCE Committee on Computational Hydraulics as well as corresponding efforts within the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (IAHR) modeling communities. A further discussion of the calculation verification procedure to determine numerical uncertainty for estuarine models is presented based on work by Schmalz (2007). Additional analytical test cases as posted on the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) and Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) Websites are presented to further supplement the cases presented by Wang et al. (2009). In addition, skill metrics are reviewed for time series as well as for scalar and vector field evaluation. In conclusion, plans for further development of model verification and validation procedures within the National Ocean Service (NOS) are presented in the context of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) framework and the NOS model evaluation environment for the Delaware River and Bay (Patchen, 2008).

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