Modelshed

An Introduction to Modelshed and Geodata Models

An Introduction to Modelshed and Geodata Models

The Relevance of The Modelshed Geodata Model

A Basic Overview of New Data Model Structures

Modelshed is a geodata model for diverse environmental science and hydrologic applications, capable of representing four-dimensional (4D) model domains, vertical layering, environmental fluxes, dynamic spatial features, statistical timeseries data, and relationships between heterogeneous model domains. Modelshed extends the capabilities of the ArcHydro data model [inset link here], and is fully compatible with that model's structures and software tools. It is based on the ESRI ArcObjects™ and geodatabase technologies, and therefore stores its data objects with geospatial location and projection information compatible with OpenGIS spatial metadata standards. Modelshed-modeled data may be read and spatially integrated by GIS applications, and its data may be accessed by industry-standard database software such as Microsoft Access™, Oracle™, and IBM DB2™. With the added flexibility, Modelshed is able to model a diverse variety of environmental systems, and connect those systems with the hydrologic structures modeled in ArcHydro.

Data models help us organize and structure our data to make it useful to us for analysis and modeling. The science and business communities have many different understandings of the data model concept, but most parties can agree that data models are relational, object-oriented data representations that define objects and relationships and establish the connectivity between heterogeneous datasets. Using a data model, the quality and integrity of the data and interrelations may be tracked and maintained by software tools that are designed to recognize and enforce well-formed data. Data models allow the geospatial community to store and structure data in a standardized manner, share this data using modern internet technologies, and develop generic tools for data visualization and analysis. A specialized data model used to store the spatial information used by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a geodata model.

The Modelshed Geodata Model was developed by Ben Ruddell and Dr. Praveen Kumar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is discussed in the third and fourth chapters of Ben's Master's Thesis.