Watershed modeling is a critical tool for engineers and scientists working in flood risk assessment, infrastructure design, and water resources planning. In Arizona, practitioners commonly rely on HEC-HMS for event-based hydrologic simulations following methodologies established by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) and the Flood Control District of Maricopa County (FCDMC). While effective, these semi-distributed approaches may not capture the full spatial variability of watershed processes that influence flood behavior.
This workshop introduces participants to a new generation of watershed modeling tools by comparing HEC-HMS with tRIBS (TIN-based Real-time Integrated Basin Simulator), a fully-distributed, open-source hydrologic model developed over 20+ years of research and now available on GitHub. Participants will work through a real-world case study in the South Mountain Fan (SMF) watershed in the Phoenix metropolitan area, applying the tRIBS model to the largest observed streamflow event on August 12, 2014, and two subsequent events within the same summer. Attendees will gain first-hand insight into the capabilities, limitations, and the value added to consulting and design projects by applying distributed hydrologic models.
A key feature of this workshop is the use of modern cyberinfrastructure. Participants will use GitHub Codespaces and Jupyter Notebooks to interact with tRIBS, eliminating the need for complex software installations and demonstrating how cloud-based tools are changing the landscape of hydrologic modeling. All workshop materials have been developed and tested in a university course at Arizona State University during the Spring 2026 semester.
Arizona Hydrological SocietyPO Box 65062, Tucson AZ 85728 | www.azhydrosoc.org
