VIC is a macro-scale hydrological model, created by Xu Liang at the University of Washington, designed to process inputs from a global circulation model and simulate properties and effects on different modules: land cover and soil, snow, meteorology, frozen soil, lakes and wetlands, and flow simulations. VIC models the interactions and flow of water between the various modules, over a range of spatial scales, at daily or sub-daily timescales. The model notably excludes stream flow, requiring a separate model, and focuses on land surface simulation. The various modules allow VIC to consider different land cover types, regardless of geographic location, multiple soil layers, snow on the ground, surface of lakes, and in vegetation canopy, as well as frozen soil and permafrost. A dynamic lake and wetland model was added to the latest version of VIC, allowing for the modeling of permanent lakes and seasonal flooding (wetlands) inside of the model's grid squares, with river flow modeling being performed separately from the rest of the land surface model.
This toolbox entry has been labelled with the following tags:
| Sector: | water management | |
| Spatial scale: | regional; global | |
| Temporal focus: | independent | |
| Onset: | sudden | |
| Role in decision process: | diagnostic | |
| Level of skills required: | high | |
| Data requirements: | high | |
| Adaptation tasks: | Potential impact projection |
Strengths:
The model has been used in a number of watershed studies in the United States (Columbia, Ohio, and Upper Mississippi rivers), as well as a global analysis. VIC is part of an experimental surface water monitoring website run by the University of Washington, with the goal of presenting as close to real-time as possible monitoring of the continental U.S. for developing flood or drought conditions. VIC can be driven by observed or simulated data, and is thus suited for both present- and future- time slices.
The VIC model source code is made freely available via the University of Washington, however, there is a significant amount of experience required to operate the model. VIC is written in C, and runs only on Linux-based computers. Depending on the scope of analysis, numerous input files need to be collected and properly formatted for use by the model. As VIC is very processing intensive, it requires a Linux cluster to run on, and a reagular desktop machine will probably not have the necessary computing power.
The VIC website provides a guide for user's wishing to install and run the tool, as well as frequently asked questions and periodic updates to the source code.
http://www.hydro.washington.edu/Lettenmaier/Models/VIC/SourceCode/Download.shtml
Liang, X., D. P. Lettenmaier, E. F. Wood, and S. J. Burges, 1994: A Simple hydrologically Based Model of Land Surface Water and Energy Fluxes for GSMs, J. Geophys. Res.,99(D7), 14,415-14,428.
Gao, H., Q. Tang, X. Shi, C. Zhu, T. J. Bohn, F. Su, J. Sheffield, M. Pan, D. P. Lettenmaier, and E. F. Wood, 2010: Water Budget Record from Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) Model. In Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document for Terrestrial Water Cycle Data Records (in review).
http://www.hydro.washington.edu/forecast/monitor/research.shtml
