Services — Numerical Modeling

Our engineering analysis team helps clients gain important insight into water resource issues and environmental challenges. Our modeling work can contribute to planning, design, permitting, real-time operations, and emergency response for study areas including:

  • River-reservoir systems
  • Estuaries
  • Tidal marshes
  • Gate/barrier structures
  • Harbors
  • Ship channels
  • Flood plains
  • Wastewater discharges

The models increase clients’ understanding of status, changes, and challenges connected to:

  • Hydrology
  • Hydraulics
  • Hydrodynamics
  • Water quality
  • System operations
  • Climate change
  • Primary productivity
  • Sea level rise
  • Salinity intrusion
  • Sediment transport
  • Levees
  • Marsh restoration
  • Fish behavior

We use our in-house 1D/2D finite element models, RMA2 and RMA11, extensively in our modeling projects. Our RMA Bay-Delta model is an important analysis tool that has been relied upon by Delta stakeholders for nearly twenty years. We have additionally applied the RMA models to other coastal project sites such as Newport Bay, Mugu Lagoon and Marina del Rey.

We are now also employing the 3D UnTRIM model in our studies. We have worked together with UC Davis to develop and calibrate a 3D model of the Bay-Delta system: the RMA 3D San Francisco Estuary Model.

The HEC-5Q river-reservoir water quality model was developed in-house for HEC and we continually enhance it for project-specific needs. We have applied this model in studies of local river-reservoir systems (including the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Russian River systems), as well as large systems throughout North America (including the Columbia River, Snake River, Red River, Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River systems).

We are also well-versed in the application of DWR’s DSM2 hydrodynamics and water quality models, HYDRO and QUAL. Our partners have enlisted us for modeling of EIR/EIS project consequences on Delta hydrodynamics and salinity using DSM2. Since spearheading enhancement of the DSM2-QUAL temperature and nutrient model applications in 2008, we have applied the enhanced QUAL model for applications from hypothetical scenarios to multidisciplinary research.

Many federal and state agencies, universities, and consulting firms already use our model applications and enlist our modeling expertise in multidisciplinary studies. Contact us to learn about our modeling services.