HYDROSCIENCE AND ENGINEERING INVESTIGATIONS

More computational models have been developed for applications to the investigations of a variety of problems in hydroscience and engineering. Some of them have been utilized in not only engineering designs; but also planning, management and even policy decisions of large scale and highly complex projects costing huge amounts of funds and having long-term impact to our society. The lack of a rigorous methodology for establishing the quality standard, or the assurance of the models ’ reliability and accuracy, has raised great concerns by a number of professional societies, research institutions, governmental agencies and professionals in the field worldwide. This paper is to introduce the findings of the ASCE-EWRI Task Committee on 3D Free Surface Flow Model Verification and Validation. The Task Committee consisting of more than 15 members from 6 countries have actively worked on this task for more than 8 years. The detailed findings shall be soon published in an ASCE Monograph on this topic. The paper intends to present only the highlights briefly. A rigorous validation and verification process of computational model for hydro-engineering investigations should include three steps: Mathematical Verification, Physical Process Validation