Fostering the Use of Scientific Water Models from Different Stakeholder
Perspectives through the Sustainable Water Through Integrated Modeling
(SWIM) Platform
Abstract
The interpretation and use of scientific models are relevant to public
discourse and decision-making about future water scenarios. Tools to use
these scientific models aim to facilitate understanding water systems;
however, the information in these tools can be so vast, complex, and
prone to uncertainties that users may find using some of these tools a
cumbersome task. Users can be presented with numerous outputs,
visualizations, and vocabulary that are irrelevant or do not align with
their perspective (i.e., user role) in the water system under study. To
address these issues, the SWIM platform extends the capabilities of
traditional Web-based graphical interfaces to foster the use of
scientific models, in particular, water sustainability models. With the
integration of a recommender system and a dynamic interface, SWIM
provides users with a list of prioritized outputs (i.e., modeling
results) based on their perspective, to reduce the overload of data
presented to users. Users are also provided with a range of output
visualization graphs and narrative elements (i.e., contextual natural
language descriptions) to support the interpretation of model results.
The SWIM interface design provides a seamless high-level workflow for
models developed in different modeling software tools and languages. The
SWIM platform is designed to foster interoperability by providing open
APIs and knowledge bases to access data, metadata, and models (i.e.,
Model-As-A-Service). This presentation highlights the key elements of
SWIM that enable the interpretation of scientific model outputs from
different perspectives and the interoperability features of this
platform.