Hydro v6.3-beta Soil Macropore parameter misnamed "Percentage" but should be "Fraction", and has outdated default value
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:47 pm
The Hydro v6.3.4 Graphical User Interface (GUI), Step 3 Hydrological Parameters, includes "Soil Macropore Percentage" as a parameter. That parameter has a range of 0.0000001–0.2 and a default of 0.000001. Here are two known issues with this parameter:
This superficial error is in the latest Hydro user interface (v6.3.4) but not the latest Hydro+ model. To explain that difference: Development of the Hydro GUI has discontinued, as described on top of the Hydro tool page. Rather than maintain the GUI, we are focusing development on the advanced scientific model behind-the-scenes, which is now available as the Hydro+ tool in the i-Tree Research Suite. The Hydro v6.3.4 GUI (the "frontend") runs the 'stable' Hydro+ model (the "backend", model code revision 377 tagged for i-Tree Hydro v6.3), while development on the Hydro+ model continues without a graphical user interface.
- Soil Macropore parameter units are actually a decimal fraction, it is not a percentage.
- Our latest recommended default value is 0.1, not 0.000001, meaning the project area's average soil has 10% macropore space.
This superficial error is in the latest Hydro user interface (v6.3.4) but not the latest Hydro+ model. To explain that difference: Development of the Hydro GUI has discontinued, as described on top of the Hydro tool page. Rather than maintain the GUI, we are focusing development on the advanced scientific model behind-the-scenes, which is now available as the Hydro+ tool in the i-Tree Research Suite. The Hydro v6.3.4 GUI (the "frontend") runs the 'stable' Hydro+ model (the "backend", model code revision 377 tagged for i-Tree Hydro v6.3), while development on the Hydro+ model continues without a graphical user interface.