The EFDC+ code has been upgraded to allow export of netCDF-CF (netCDF- Climate and Forecast) formatted data. This development has been conducted with the goal of providing EFDC+ output that can be read and displayed on web servers.
The netCDF software functions as an I/O library, that can be accessed from different programming languages such as C, FORTRAN, Fortran 90, C++, Java, Perl, Python, and other languages for which a netCDF library is available. The library stores and retrieves data in self-describing, machine-independent datasets. Each netCDF dataset can contain multidimensional, named variables (with differing types that include integers, reals, characters, bytes, etc.), and each variable may be accompanied by ancillary data, such as units of measure or descriptive text. The interface includes a method for appending data to existing netCDF datasets in prescribed ways, functionality that is not unlike a (fixed length) record structure. However, the netCDF library also allows direct-access storage and retrieval of data by variable name and index and therefore is useful only for disk-resident (or memory-resident) datasets.
NetCDF is designed to:
• Facilitate the use of common datasets by distinct applications.
• Permit datasets to be transported between or shared by dissimilar computers transparently, that is, without translation.
• Reduce the programming effort usually spent interpreting formats.
• Reduce errors arising from misinterpreting data and ancillary data.
• Facilitate using output from one application as input to another.
• Establish an interface standard that simplifies the design of new software for accessing geo-science data.
EFDC+ now exports the native output in netCDF-CF format for Windows and Linux. EE, the pre- and post-processor for EFDCPlus can also convert EFDC *.OUT files to netCDF .nc files, including the derived WQ parameters. EFDCPlus currently exports 44 parameters to NetCDF format as listed at the end of this document.
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To demonstrate the netCDF output is consistent with the data viewed in EE, a number of comparisons have been made for different models. Examples of a output from the West Lake WQ model in EE, ArcGIS and ncWMS are shown in Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5 respectively. Note that the West Lake model may be downloaded from the EE website.
Figure 3. EE display of EFDC+ output – DO at 137.001
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