NCIMM – A Sustainable Center for Crowd-Sourced Water Infrastructure Modeling
The National Center for Infrastructure Modeling and Management (NCIMM) is being developed by a team comprised of the University of Texas, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Brigham Young University, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, and the Urban Water Resources Institute, with support from an extensive and growing network of advisers and associates. The multi-sector partnership (Government Agency, University Consortium, and Non-Profit Corporation, with material and increasing support from private sector commercial entities) is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of modeling tools for infrastructure analysis and management, training on the use of those tools, and expansion of the tools to incorporate changes in the computational environment and end user needs. The mission is being accomplished by a balance of Outreach, Research, and Code Development. The 2016/2017 funding year (FY17) activities and plans for the 2017/2018 funding year (FY18) are described in this report.
This research is targeted at development of a sustainable national center for the furtherance of EPASWMM, EPANET, and other software. In support of this global and primary objective are a range of enabling objectives, including the development of a superior engine for EPA-SWMM (and potentially EPANET) hydraulic calculations, and the development of associated tools and capabilities (i.e. support for the tools, training, and related contributing activities). In the first year of the research program, the primary objectives were to reach out to the relevant communities, develop avenues of communication as to needs and priorities, enlist support from individuals and entities with allied interests, take steps to stabilize code from the existing products, and make progress on engine development in the form of theoretical advances and evaluation of alternative development options.