Description
Estuaries and coastal zones are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, supporting
many human activities and providing multiple ecosystem services. The ability to simulate and
forecast the dynamics of estuarine and coastal zones is thus essential to support the sustainable
management of these regions, both for daily activities and for long-term strategies associated
with climate change.
Computational forecast systems are an important asset to address these concerns by providing
predictions of relevant variables, through the integration of numerical models and field data.
The reliability of the forecast predictions depends however on the accuracy of the models
behind them. Unstructured grid numerical models have been used for several decades to
simulate coastal zones at LNEC to address the need for adequate spatial and temporal
discretizations. For the past decade these models have been integrated in LNEC’s forecast
platform WIFF (WIFF - Water Information Forecast Framework) to predict water circulation
and water quality in coastal zones, taking advantage of the resources of the Portuguese National
Computational Infrastructure (INCD).
This communication summarizes and evaluates our experience of running forecast systems in
the INCD. The applications range from the inundation of estuarine margins to oil spill and water
contamination predictions. End-users include the Civil Protection agency, port authorities and
wastewater utilities. The major focus will be performance issues (comparing grid and cloud
resources), service level performance and user experience.
