Green Kenue Tutorial:

Creating WATFLOOD MAP file

IP3/CRHM/MESH Workshop
National Hydrology Research Centre
Saskatoon, SK
September 7-9 2011

Prepared by: Erika Klyszejko

Water Survey of Canada
373 Sussex Drive, Block E-1 Ottawa, ON K1A 0H3
Erika.Klyszejko@ec.gc.ca
Introduction

The following tutorial aims to guide workshop participants through the creation
of the WATFLOOD Map file. The Map file is subsequently used to produce the
MESH drainage database.

Green Kenue (formerly EnSim Hydrologic) is an advanced data preparation,

analysis, and visualization tool for hydrologic modellers. Green Kenue is used to
produce the WATFLOOD Map file based on digital elevation data and land cover
information. For further details on the Green Kenue application, please refer
to the National Research Council’s Canadian Hydraulic Centre’s website:
http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/ibp/chc/software/kenue/green-kenue.html

First, we must familiarize ourselves with the Green Kenue Interface:

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Importing your elevation information

Green Kenue can import and manipulate several formats of digital elevation
information such as ArcInfo ASCII grid files, NRCan and USGS Digital Elevation
Maps, Surfer Grid files, Binary Rasters and SRTM Grid files.

From the menu bar, select File  Import ArcINFO(Grid) ASCII

Navigate to …\GreenKenue\TutorialData\TVC_DEM40m.asc and click Open.

The DEM object will appear in the Workspace on the left-hand side of your
screen.

All spatial Kenue objects have a sense of coordinate

system. The coordinate systems recognized by
Green Kenue are LatLong, UTM, MTM, Polar
Stereographic, Lambert Conformal, Albers, and
Cartesian. The default coordinate system for any
object is Cartesian. Some imported objects contain
coordinate system information (e.g, MapInfo *.mif).

Assign the proper coordinate system to your DEM by

right-clicking on the DEM object and selecting
Properties. Under the Spatial tab, click Assign…
Select the appropriate coordinate system (as shown
on the right) and click OK. Click Apply.

To view your DEM, drag the DEM object into a 2D view. You can play around
with the display option available under the Display and ColorScale tabs to
change the view settings of the DEM object.

Creating a watershed object

Green Kenue uses elevation data to determine the direction of overland flow of
water, generate a channel network and watershed boundary.

To create a new watershed object, select File  New 

Watershed... from the menu bar. A watershed object will
be created and listed under the Data Items category, with
the component files empty. A “Properties of: new
Watershed” dialog box will appear.

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Within the Workspace, drag the TVC_DEM40m DEM object onto the watershed
object's empty component. In the “Properties of: new Watershed”
dialogue box, select the AT_Search flow algorithm and press the Generate
button (see Green Kenue manual for details on the AT Search and Jenson flow
algorithms). Green Kenue will create a default channel network and basin.

Drag the , and objects into the 2D View. Each object

will appear in the display window on the right. If you wish to change the
display properties of any object, double-click on the object or right-click and
select Properties.

Locating your outlet

Green Kenue automatically generates a basin at the outlet of the major

channel. To create a basin that better defines your study area you must locate
the position of your desired outlet along a channel.

Green Kenue can import georeferenced information such as point objects and
line sets. The application supports a variety of foreign file formats such as
ArcView Shape Files and MapInfo Interchange Files (please refer to Green
Kenue manual for a complete list).

Green Kenue can also import the following environmental databases published
by Environment Canada: the Canadian Daily Climate Data (CDCD) and the
hydrometric information database known as HYDAT. In this tutorial, the
location of the nearest hydrometric gauge, as it appears in HYDAT, will be used
as the outlet of our drainage basin.

Accessing the HYDAT database

The Water Survey of Canada publishes historic water level, streamflow and
sediment data in a Microsoft Access (.mdb) database. The most recent version
of the HYDAT database can be downloaded from the Water Survey of Canada’s
website (www.ec.gc.ca/rhc-wsc).

To access the HYDAT.mdb file through Green Kenue select File

Environmental Data Open HYDAT MDB Database… Browse to
…\GreenKenue\HYDAT\HYDAT.mdb and open the file. The HydatStations object
will appear in the workspace.

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Station locations within the HYDAT database are in LatLong projection. In order
to display the network in the same View as your DEM, you will need to change
the projection of the HYDAT object.

Displaying data with different projections in the same view

An object’s projection can be converted to display the object in another

coordinate system. To change projections, open the Properties dialog box.
Under the Spatial tab, change the object’s projection to match that of your
Watershed object. Click Apply.

You can now move the HydatStations object into your 2D View and see the
location of the hydrometric gauge within your study area.

Delineating a new basin

To create a new Basin, select the

Channels object by clicking once
on it in the Workspace. In the 2D
View window, double-click on the
location of your outlet along the
channel. A channel segment will
be highlighted and an information
window will appear with properties
of that segment. Right-click
anywhere on the map and select
Add Basin. A subbasin with the
selected location as an outlet will
be drawn and a new basin object ( ) will appear in the Workspace as a
child object of your Watershed. To remove the default basin, select Basin 1 in
your workspace, right-click and select Remove.

Save watershed file by selection File  Save from the menu bar.

Verification of Kenue-generated objects using georeferenced

information

The delineation of channels and basin boundaries by Green Kenue is sometimes

limited by the quality of the DEM it is provided. For example, a DEM may
contain errors or its resolution may not be fine enough to capture certain land

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features. In some cases, the DEM can be edited and the watershed
regenerated.

It is useful to compare the resultant Green Kenue channel and basin boundaries
with any available georeferenced data. In this tutorial, we will compare the
Kenue-generated basin and river network with digitized images of a manually-
created basin and river network.

Select File  Import  ArcView Shape File and browse to

GreenKenue\TutorialData\. Select the TV_creek.shp and TVC_basin.shp files
and click Open. Each layer can be added to the display window containing your
Watershed by dragging it onto the same 2D view. A warning will appear if you
do not set the spatial properties of these objects.

You will notice a significant discrepancy between the Kenue-generated and

digitized objects. Green Kenue was not able to successfully resolve the channel
network in this area of the watershed. Displaying the DEM in a 3D View can
help identify errors in the DEM or regions of low relief where drainage
directions cannot accurately be calculation.

Such errors can be resolved in a number of ways. You may choose to proceed
with the generation of the WATFLOOD map file and manually correct the map
file, or you may edit the DEM, or you may use Green Kenue to force a channel
in a specific direction. The following instructions describe how to proceed with
the latter option.

Adding a predefined channel

Water can be forced along a certain flow path by adding a predefined channel
to your watershed object:

1. Create or load a 2D or3D Line Set object (please refer to "Drawing Lines
and Closed Polylines" in the Green Kenue Manual).
o For the purposes of this tutorial, the appropriate line set has been
provided. From the menu bar, select File  Open…
o From the “Files of type:” drop down menu select “Line Sets
(*.i2s,*.i3s)”. Browse to
GreenKenue\TutorialData\PredefChannel.i2s and click Open
2. Open the Watershed Properties dialog box and click the Enable
Predefined Channels box and click Apply. A new tab will appear entitled
“Channels-def.” and a new object with the same name will appear in
the workspace as a child of the watershed object.

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 3. Drag and drop the Line Set object describing the channels on to the
Channels-def. object.
4. The Number of Channels value on the Channels-def tab of the Watershed
properties dialog will increase by one for each set of channels added,
and the new channels will be listed as enabled.
5. Go back to the Watershed tab of the Properties dialog and click
Generate.

Creating a new map file

Select File  New  Watflood Map....

Drag the watershed onto the newly-
created WATFLOOD map object in the
workspace.

In the Properties dialog box of the Watershed object Green Kenue will create a
default modelling grid by assigning values to the Origin, Count and Delta fields
of the to the map file. To assign the proper values required in this tutorial,
select and enter the values shown below. Click Apply.

Under the Source Watershed heading, ensure that the Calculate FRAC from
contributing areas box is selected (see Green Kenue manual for details) and
click Collect. Green Kenue will automatically populate the following fields of
the WATFLOOD Map file (see Green Kenue manual for field definitions):
 Channel elevation
 Drainage area
 Drainage direction
 Contour density
 Channel density

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Drag the WATFLOOD Map object into a 2D View. To change the actively
displayed Map file field, open the WATFLOOD Map object Properties dialog box
and click on the Data tab. A green check mark will appear next to the active
attribute. Double click on the attribute you wish to display.

Adding land cover information to the map file

This tutorial explains how to map land use from a GeoTIFF file. To learn about
other methods of mapping land use information, please refer to the Green
Kenue manual.

To load the land cover file File  Import  GeoTIFF. Browse to

GreenKenue\TutorialData\TVC_landcover.tif and click Open. The GeoTIFF will
appear in the workspace as the following icon: Drag the GeoTIFF into the
2D View.

Double click on the GeoTIFF to open the Properties dialogue box. Rename the
Class Names to match the following figure and click OK.

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Right-click the WATFLOOD Map object and select Map Land Use Data From
GeoTIFF... Select the appropriate TVC_landcover from the dialog box and click
OK.

WATFLOOD requires an Impervious class

in all Map files. Since this land class was
not represented in our GeoTIFF, we
must add the class manually. In the
Properties dialog box of your map file,
select the Data tab. Under the Edit
Land Use/Attributes section, click Add.
Name this attribute Impervious and
click OK. A new attribute will appear at
the bottom of the attribute list. Click
OK.

Save the map by selecting File  Save…

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Extracting basin metrics

There are a variety of watershed tools available in the Green Kenue

environment under the Tools  Watershed menu. These hydrologic tools are
used in conjunction with the Kenue Core tools to provide a greater
understanding of the physical characteristics of the watershed.

In order to extract basin metrics, a DEM or a

basin in the Workspace has to be selected. The
result generated can be viewed in a 1D (e.g.
hypsographic curve), 2D (e.g. basin network)
or 3D view (e.g. average upslope elevation).

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 Accessing HYDAT data from Green Kenue
Accessing the database from HYDAT.mdb file

To access the HYDAT.mdb file through Green Kenue select File

Environmental Data Open HYDAT MDB Database… Browse to the location of
the HYDAT.mdb on your machine and open the file. The HydatStations object
will appear in the workspace. The object can be dragged into a 2D View to
display all HYDAT stations.

Filtering the station attribute table

Users can filter through the HYDAT station attribute table to narrow down the
number of stations displayed in the view. To view the station attribute table,
right-click on the HydatStations object in the workspace and select Show
Attribute Table (Filter) from the drop-down list. A table will appear in the
View space entitled HydatStation Filter.

If you click on a station in the table, the station will be highlighted in both the
table and the 2D view displaying the HydatStations object.

Accessing a station

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Within the 2D View, right-click on a highlighted station and select Load
Selected from the drop-down menu, or select FileEnvironmental DataOpen
HYDATLoad Selected from the menu bar.

You can view the station’s metadata through the Properties window by double-
clicking on the station object ( ) in the Workspace. Similarly,
metadata and display properties for each time series associated with the
station can be accessed by double-clicking on the individual time series (i.e.
DailyFlow, DailyLevel etc.).

Displaying HYDAT time series

To display a time series, drag the icon onto a 1D view.

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 Manipulation of time series
Computing a distribution

A probability density distribution curve can

be computed from a time series. This curve
displays the distribution of data for a
record set. Only the records included in a
temporal subset will be used for computing
the distribution.

To create a distribution: right-click on a

time-series in the Workspace and select
Compute Distribution from the shortcut
menu.

The Data tab from the Properties dialog of the distribution displays some useful
information about the time series.

Editing time series

To open the time series editor dialog: right-click on a time-series in the

Workspace and select Edit…The data points can be edited, added or deleted.
The NoData page allows the user several options for replacing NoData values.

Resampling time series

Right-click on a time-series in the Workspace and select

Resample… from the shortcut menu. You can choose a
resampling method within the Resample Options section.

The Calculator

The calculator tool performs basic arithmetic operations for time series
objects, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. To open the
Calculator: right-click on a time-series in the Workspace and select
Calculator…

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