Tools to prepare modflow-usg inputs

[Chang Liao]

Hi, I am trying to set up a modflow-usg simulation.

Is there any available tools(freeware if possible) I can make use of?

Thanks in advance!

[Raymond Albert Ng]

Do you mean a GUI? You can try ModelMuse. It's freeware from USGS.

[Chang Liao]

http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/gwsoftware/ModelMuse/ModelMuse.html

A Graphical User Interface for MODFLOW-2005, MODFLOW-LGR, MODFLOW-LGR2, MODFLOW-NWT, MODFLOW-CFP, MODFLOW-OWHM, MT3DMS, SUTRA, PHAST, MODPATH, and ZONEBUDGET

However, Modelmust currently does not support MODFLOW-USG.

[Cptn. Nemo]

Hi, this is not really easy. As far as I know, there are no free GUIs that support unstructured grids. From the commercial ones, I know of Visual Modflow Flex (from Waterloo Hydrogeologic) and Groundwater Vistas (from ESI). If you do Python, you could use FloPy3. It works with Modflow-USG, however there are still problems with discretization (DISU) module for unstructured grid - it officially works only with single layer meshes. If you however use rectangular grid with Modflow-USG, FloPy3 works fine - but what is the point? :)

If you want to use Modflow-USG with unstructured (triangular, voronoi) meshes, the grid/mesh generation becomes the biggest problem, as the quality of the mesh really impacts model performance in terms of convergence. I use commercially available AlgoMesh (from HydroAlgorithmics - http://www.hydroalgorithmics.com/software/algomesh/), it generates quite nice meshes and creates the discretization files for you. They offer 30 days free trial. After that, it would be up to you to persuade your boss to buy this for you :)

Hope this helped a bit even if it did not really answer your question.

Cheers, P.