VIDENTE IWRM Control Room

The Dutch waterboard Hoogheemraadschap De Stichtse Rijnlanden (HDSR) aims to improve daily operational water management by providing accurate information and forecasts of water system conditions to its staff (operators, hydrologists, calamity managers) and the neighbouring waterboards. Therefore HydroNET VIDENTE was developed: a real-time decision support system which provides short and long term forecasts of hydrologic conditions in the HDSR area, including ground- and surface water levels, flow rates, inundations, economic impacts and actions to be taken to mitigate flooding.

VIDENTE incorporates a groundwater model (based on MODFLOW) together with a detailed SOBEK surface water model that incorporates all relevant water-management structures (weirs, sluices, pumping stations) and GIS-based postprocessing to generate inundation maps and economic impacts.

Example of a HydroNET dashboard showing the phreatic groundwater table forecast.

VIDENTE handles gigabytes of meteorological and hydrological data on a daily basis. Meteorological inputs are derived from high-resolution satellite imagery, weather (precipitation) radars, meteorological observations at stations and numerical weather forecasts ranging from 48hrs to up to 10 days ahead (HARMONIE and ECMWF-EPS). The SCADA system of HDSR provides high-frequency data (5, 15 and 60 minute intervals) on water levels and discharges at more than 30 observation stations that are integrated in model predictions. Model outputs are at a 5×5 meter (16.4×16.4 feet) resolution, with a timescale of 1 hour and are updated multiple times per day.

The VIDENTE system architecture consists of a ‘back-end’ in the Delft-FEWS software platform, for data acquisition, data processing & validation, preparing model inputs, processing the models and storing the model outputs. The ‘front-end’ User Interface (UI) is configured in the HydroNET software platform, fully web based and available on any device: laptop, desktop and mobile devices (tablets and smartphones).

Example of a HydroNET dashboard showing the salinity level in the Hollandse IJssel river.