GMS Training, Olten, Switzerland

Members of the GMS training team recently completed an onsite training class in Olten, Switzerland from April 22-24. It was an intense 3 day training experience. The small class size allowed the students to be very engaged and learn a lot of material in a short period of time. The day following the training was spent working on the client's groundwater modeling project and applying the principles learned in the training. This type of onsite training is available to clients worldwide at very reasonable price. If you are interested in onsite training, including help with your modeling project, contact training@aquaveo.com.

April 2013 Sprint

• Fixed 7 bugs
• Project on-the-fly code improvements
• Training course in Switzerland 
• MODFLOW-LGR progress
• MODFLOW-USG progress
• Testing coverage analysis progress

GMS in Beijing, China

Norm Jones and Todd Wood from Aquaveo recently traveled to Beijing, China to conduct a GMS training course on April 23-25 on the campus of Beijing University. The course was co-sponsored by Beijing Water International (BWI) and had 47 attendees from all over China, as well as at least one attendee from Taiwan. BWI translated the GMS tutorial and workshop documents into Chinese and provided translators for each of the lectures.

On the Monday (April 22) just prior to the course, Prof. Jones participated in a one-day workshop at Beijing University on the Arc Hydro Groundwater (AHGW) data model and tools. This workshop was hosted by Chunmiao Zheng who is now a faculty member at Beijing University. The workshop also featured a presentation by Yingying Yao who is one of Prof. Zheng's PhD students. Yingying presented the results of a major groundwater study involving the Heihe River Basin in North Central China. Yingying used AHGW to compile and manage the groundwater data, which she then used to construct a detailed 3D model of the site geology. She also built a 3D groundwater model using GMS. The workshop also included presentations by the Chinese Geologic Survey.

Groundwater is a focus of increasing attention in China recently, partly due to some high profile cases involving groundwater contamination being featured in the media. The Chinese government has recently indicated that maintaining groundwater quality and sustainability will be a strategic emphasis in the coming years. We hope that both GMS and AHGW can assist in that effort.

March 2013 Sprint

• Fixed 6 bugs
• Released GMS 9.1 beta. See the What's New.
• Added lots of user-request features, including:
• Snap Boreholes to TINs command
• Exporting material names/colors/patterns/tranparency
• Computed flow and Residual flow columns added to the map attribute table for flow observations
• Iso-surface transparency
• Copy feature objects to another coverage
• Activate / Inactivate scatter points command
• MODFLOW-LGR progress
• MODFLOW-USG progress
• New tutorials created:
• MODFLOW - Transient Calibration Pump Test
• MODFLOW - Transient Observation Data
• PHT3D - Ion Exchange And Surface Complexation
• PHT3D - Transport And Mineral Reactions
• Project on-the-fly interface improvements
• Progress on code coverage analysis with tests
• Much code cleanup and refactoring

PHT3D

GMS 9.1 will support PHT3D.

PHT3D is a multicomponent transport model for three-dimensional reactive transport in saturated porous media developed and maintained by Henning Prommer and Vicent Post. PHT3D is a combination of MT3DMS and PHREEQC-2. The PHREEQC allows for a variety of low temperature aqueous geochemical reactions.

GMS will support PHT3D as an add-on to the MT3DMS interface. In addition to the samples that come with the PHT3D documentation, users can create their own geochemical reactions and use the GMS interface to set up their model. GMS can parse the PHREEQC database file, so any valid PHREEQC database can be used to set up a model. Below are a few screen shots from the interface.

MT3D Basic Package dialog allows selection of PHT3D as transport  model

After selecting PHT3D as the transport model the user can select the Define Species button and the following dialog will come up.

PHT3D Options dialog

From this dialog the user can set basic PHT3D options. By selecting from the list on the left of the dialog the user can enter various options for the different types of species that are included in the model.

PHT3D Options dialog with no database file selected

Notice at the top of the dialog the user can choose to select a PHREEQC database file. The species are partially defined by the contents of the PHREEQC database file. GMS reads the PHREEQC database and makes the species contained therein available to the user. The user can also select a PHREEQC-2 interface package file. When an interface package file is chosen GMS assumes that the PHREEQC database file is in the same directory with the name pht3d_datab.dat. The images below show some of the options for entering data related to the species.

Equlibrium Species

Kinetic Species

Equilibrium Minerals

Zoom to Selections, Locate Selections

Two new commands were added at GMS 9.0: Edit | Locate Selections and Display | Zoom To Selections.

Locate Selections
The Locate Selections command is in the Edit menu and results in an animated rectangle which starts from the borders of the graphics window and zooms in to surround whatever is currently selected (grid cells, boreholes etc). This helps you identify where your selections are.

Zoom To Selections
The Zoom To Selections command is in the Display menu and causes the graphics window to be framed around the currently selected objects (grid cells etc).

These commands can make working with large amounts of data a little easier.

February 2013 Sprint

• Taught training course in Egypt
• Fixed 6 bugs
• Finished PHT3D interface which is now being reviewed.
• MODFLOW-LGR progress
• MODFLOW-USG progress
• Completed design for MODFLOW-CFP
• Added transient TINs with Map -> MODFLOW
• Much miscellaneous code refactoring