See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/286949879

MASCARET: A 1-D open-source software for flow hydrodynamic and water

quality in open channel networks

Article · January 2012

CITATIONS READS

33 1,669

4 authors, including:

Nicole Goutal Kamal el Kadi Abderrezzak

Électricité de France (EDF) Électricité de France (EDF)
70 PUBLICATIONS   937 CITATIONS    76 PUBLICATIONS   851 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Couplage des codes TELEMAC et Mascaret View project

Physical modelling of overtopping induced fluvial dike failure View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Kamal el Kadi Abderrezzak on 23 May 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

MASCARET : a 1-D open-source software for flow hydrodynamic and water
quality in open channel networks
N. Goutal, J.-M. Lacombe, F. Zaoui & K. El-Kadi-Abderrezzak
LNHE, EDF R&D, Chatou, France

MASCARET modeling framework is a set of numerical codes simulating one-dimensional (1-D) hydro-
environmental problems through a network of open channels. The governing equations underlying MAS-
CARET are the shallow water equations for unsteady flow propagation and the advection-dispersion equation
for water quality and contaminant transport. The hydraulic component accounts for floodplains and storage
areas, and flow at channel junction can be treated using a 2-D approach. Additionally, flood propagation over
dry beds (e.g. dam-break flows) and non-hydrostatic waves can be simulated. The user interface FUDAA-
MASCARET manages the input data, allocation of parameters, running of simulations and viewing outputs.
MASCARET can be easily compiled as a dynamic library, offering special interfaces to be used with three main
steps : Initialization, Run and Finalization of the calculation. With these features, MASCARET can be coupled
or integrated to other softwares without requiring significant efforts. Since July 2011, MASCARET is world-
wide distributed as an open-source code. In this paper, are presented various applications of this tool covering
both flow hydrodynamic and water quality. Model-data comparisons show the performance of the modeling
framework, and demonstrate the interest of this open-source software for the scientific community.

1 INTRODUCTION models are commercial or freeware.

The study of free surface water flow and water qual-
ity in open channels has many important applica-
tions, such as flood prevention measures, becoming
ever more ambitious, and accidental release of con-
taminants in rivers. With the advances made in com-
putational techniques over recent decades, numerical
models have become proactive tools for investigating
flow and water quality in networks of open channels.
The selection of one model for each specific problem
is usually contingent on the knowledge about the sys-
tem, the available measurements, and the specific ob-
jectives of the study. One-dimensional (1-D) models
require the least amount of field data, and the numer-
ical schemes used for solving the water and sediment
governing equations are more stable and offer order
of magnitude gains in computational efficiency over
2-D and 3-D models (Sobey 2001).
Several one-dimensional (1-D) numerical models
have been proposed in the literature (e.g., HEC-
RAS (USACE 2002), MIKE1-D (DHI 2001), ISIS
(HRW 2001) and every model has its own capabili-
ties and limitations. The development of these mod-
els has focused mainly on such aspects as numerical
schemes, flow-resistance relations and main channel-
floodplains flow exchange. Most of these numerical
MASCARET modeling framework is a set of
numerical codes simulating one-dimensional (1-D)
hydro-environmental problems through a network of
open channels. This modeling package has been
developed by Electricité de France-Recherche &
Développement (EDF-R&D) in collaboration with
Centre d’Etudes Techniques Maritimes et Fluviales
(CETMEF) over more than 25 years1 . MASCARET
is suitable for a wide range of engineering and envi-
ronmental applications, from calculating simple back-
water profiles to modeling networks of open channels
including floodplains and storage areas. Applications
include flood risk assessments and mapping, develop-
ing management plans, flood alleviation scheme de-
signs, dam-break flows, and water pollution manage-
ment. Since July 2011 the software package is world-
wide distributed as an open-source project for the ben-
efit of students, engineers and researchers.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 details the main feature of the flow compo-
nent of MASCARET, including the various numerical
schemes employed for resolving the water governing
1
http://innovation.edf.com/recherche-et-communaute-
scientifique/logiciels/code-mascaret-41197.html

1
equations. In Section 3, the water quality and pollu-
tant transport module is described along with simu-
lated physical/chemical processes. Section 4 presents
four applications of the model modelling framework,
namely: estimation of uncertainty in flood predic-
tions for dyke design, data assimilation in the Durance
River (France), flow propagation due to cascade dam
break, transport of tritium in the Middle Loire River
(France). This is followed by conclusions drawn in
section 5.
2 HYDRODYNAMIC MODELLING
The well known shallow water equations can be
solved with three different computational kernels. The
choice of the specific kernel depends on the case study
: steady or unsteady, with subcritical and/or supercrit-
ical flows.
2.1 SARAP Kernel
This kernel is for steady cases with subcritical, crit-
ical and supercritical conditions. The 1-D equations
are solved in one step with a finite difference scheme
where time derivatives are cancelled. A special treat-
ment is performed for the shock capturing with the so-
lution of a non-linear equation within the supercritical
region in order to determine the flow level at the point
of the supercritical-subcritical transition. The validity
of the shock position is checked with the principle of
conservation of momentum (Carlier 1998).
SARAP is extremely fast due to the need of only
one iteration to solve the problem. It is recommended
in order to quickly find correct initial conditions for
the two others unsteady kernels, or when a large
amount of calculations is necessary for a paramet-
ric study (model calibration, optimisation, incertitude
study, etc.).
2.2 REZO Kernel
REZO implements the classical finite difference
Preissmann scheme for the unsteady subcritical so-
lution of the shallow water equations (Preissmann
1961). It is implicitly coupled with a code of water
storage areas in order to take into account floodplain
inundations.
This code is extremely robust and fast under sub-
critical conditions for operational use.
2.3 MASCARET Kernel
The last hydrodynamic computational kernel is based
on a well-balanced finite volume Roe scheme (Roe
1981) (Vazquez Cendon 1994) (Goutal and Maurel
2002). It has been designed to perform well with the
simulation of dam break waves for EDF needs. It of-
fers special capabilities comparing to other codes like
the modelling of some non-hydrostatic waves (Bris-
teau et al. 2011), or the modelling of junctions with
2
2-D elements (Rissoan et al. 2002). In this last case,
MASCARET implements a simplified 1-D-2-D cou-
pling. The junction, see figure 1, is modelled by a 2-D
representation with 12 cells :
• 6 triangles defining an hexagon, models the junc-
tion itself and can be defined as exchange cells;
• 6 quadrilaterals covering the 1-D domain for the
overlap coupling.
The junction hexagon has a geometry similar with
the real one. It is built using the direction of reaches
and the width of valleys given by the user. This should
lead to a good discharge repartition in the different
reaches.
Figure 1: Overlap coupling for the junction
MASCARET kernel is suitable for every kind of
computational fluid dynamics. One will only take care
of time step restriction due to the Courant-Friedrichs-
Lewy condition if the explicit version of the time dis-
cretization is chosen.
3 WATER QUALITY
3.1 Governing equation and numerical scheme
The water quality module of MASCARET has been
designed to compute time-dependent concentrations
of a series of constituents, which are primarily gov-
erned by the processes of advection, dispersion, and
chemical/physical reactions.
The flow and advection-dispersion equations are
solved sequentially at each time step. First the flow
routing module of MASCARET is called to provide
the time-dependent hydraulic parameters throughout
the model domain, and then these variables are passed
to the water quality module for the solute transport
simulation. The advection and dispersion terms are
computed in two separate but consecutive steps (i.e.
the well-known split-operator approach). The pure
advection equation (i.e. the hyperbolic partial differ-
ential equation) can be solved using two approaches:
 • Method of characteristics, which can be applied
either to the conservative or non-conservative
form of the advection term;
• Finite volume method based either on a first
or second order upwind scheme. For the sec-
ond order scheme, a superbee limiter function
suppressing numerical oscillations has been in-
cluded. Because the numerical scheme is ex-
plicit, the time step is limited by the Courant-
Friedrichs-Levy (CFL) condition.
In the second step, an implicit finite difference
scheme is applied to the pure dispersion equation.
This method has the advantage of being uncondi-
tionally stable. Regarding the boundary conditions,
the Dirichlet condition is used at the upstream end,
whilst the Neumann condition (i.e. zero-gradient) is
imposed at the downstream end. The longitudinal dif-
fusion coefficient can be either calibrated using field
tracer studies or calculated using empirical formula-
tions. The water quality module incorporates disper-
sion coefficient formulas proposed by many authors,
see (El Kadi Abderrezzak et al. 2012).
3.2 Simulated water quality processes
The water quality module can be applied to simulate
various processes in open channels, such as migra-
tion of nuclear power plants releases, water tempera-
ture evolution, oxygen demand, growth rate of a pop-
ulation of phytoplankton, and radionuclides decay in-
cluding interaction with suspended material. The fate
and transport of water quality constituents involving
a variety of chemical and physical processes (interac-
tion between pollutants) is mathematically expressed
in the source terms of the advection-dispersion equa-
tion. The following processes have been implemented
: micro-pollutants,dissolved oxygen, phytoplankton
biomass, water temperature and eutrophication.
4 APPLICATIONS
Four recent applications are presented here after
demonstrating some of the capabilities of MAS-
CARET.
4.1 Uncertainties with SARAP
The first application concerns the uncertainty affect-
ing flood hazard assessments. Interest for this prob-
lem is increasing within the scientific community and
among decision makers (Bernardara et al. 2010). The
treatment of uncertainty both involves the proper def-
inition of a deterministic model and of the probabilis-
tic uncertainties on its inputs (De Rocquigny et al.
2008).
MASCARET is well adapted for such parametric
studies since it offers a modern interoperable inter-
face:
3
• the computation code can be easily compiled as a
dynamic library for being used outside the GUI;
• the algorithm is divided into three main steps:
Initialisation, Run and Finalisation (IRF) of the
calculation;
• it has special interfaces written in C or Fortran
language that define several entries in the code,
one entry per specific action;
• it is also instantiable allowing multiple usage of
the code in a single run.
With all these features, MASCARET is also ready
for an easiest coupling or integration with other soft-
wares while requiring no significant efforts. For the
considered example, the SARAP kernel is used within
the R2 software environment for statistical computing
(Bivand et al. 2008).
The case study is the Garonne river (France). We
want to evaluate the impact of uncertainties on the wa-
ter level corresponding to a 1000 years return period
discharge. The uncertainties taken into account con-
cern :
• the upstream discharge;
• the friction factors for the river main bed and the
floodplains;
• and on the river’s topography with a stochastic
process based on a kriging method (Krige 1951)
Figure 2 shows some computed results on the water
levels along the river considering two and three kind
of uncertainties.
These results, on the probability of water levels
along the river, are important in order to study the
role of dykes for the protection of EDF power facil-
ities against extreme flood. Due to its low computa-
tion cost, the SARAP kernel is particularly convenient
for such probabilistic studies that can require several
thousands of computations.
4.2 Data assimilation with REZO
The assimilation of water level observations is done in
order to improve the flood forecasting with the REZO
kernel in real time conditions. The case study is a part
of the Durance river (France) concerning hydroelec-
tricity.
Main uncertainties of the problem come from hy-
drological conditions on the Durance upstream flow
and lateral inflows of river #1 and #2, see figure 3.
With such unknowns, it is not possible to model cor-
rectly the water level at the dam as a function of time.
2
http://www.r-project.org
 431.6
Observation
Free run
Assim run
431.5

Water level at the dam (m)

431.4

431.3

431.2

431.1

ASSIMILATION FORECAST

431
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (hours)

Figure 4: Water level forecasting with and without

data assimilation

Figure 2: 90% confidence interval analysis Table 1: Errors between measurements and computa-
tions on the water level at the dam
Error (cm) Free run Assim run
Mean 12.5 2.2
Max 21.6 7.8

Starting from an initial estimation of the control vec-

tor xb = (a0 , b0 , c0 )T , xa is given by the following
formula which is a Best Linear Unbiased Estimate
(BLUE):

xa = xb + (B −1 + H T R−1 H)−1 H T R−1 d (2)

Figure 3: Hydropower example on Durance (France)
The data assimilation process will use all available
measurements (water level at the dam and discharge at
the plant in a 24 hours period) to correct the upstream
flow. This would lead to a significant improvement
in the water level computation in both analysis and
forecast modes.
The stationary Kalman filter is chosen as the
data assimilation technique to adjust the upstream
flow Q(t). The flow is corrected through a three-
parameters linear transformation (Ricci et al. 2011)
: ational problems. Once again, the code interoperabil-
Q̂(t) = a × Q(t − b) + c (1)
The control vector xa = (a, b, c)T is calculated
through the comparison of simulations and observa-
tions. An observation operator H is defined to find an
equivalence relation between the model results and
the measured values over the chosen time window.
where B is the background error covariance matrix,
R the observation covariance matrix, y0 the observa-
tion and d the innovation vector :
d = y0 − H(xb ) (3)
Figure 4 clearly shows the interest of the filter-
ing technique (assimilation) in order to find optimal
parameters that will modify the upstream discharge
(forecast). Compared with no corrections made on the
inflow, the data assimilation greatly improve the fore-
cast of water level at the dam as indicated in table 1.
Due to the robustness and fastness of the Preiss-
mann scheme, the Rezo kernel is well suited for oper-
ity makes its integration easy.
4.3 Dam break simulation with MASCARET
In order to illustrate the ability of the finite volume
scheme to deal with dam-break shock wave, a case
study concerning four dams in a real valley is pre-
sented, see figure 5. The first dam upstream collapses
instantaneously at the beginning of the simulation.

4
The dam #2 collapses when the wave arrives while 4.4 Tritium transport with TRACER
the two others #3 and #4 downstream are supposed to The modelling system is applied for simulating the
resist all along the simulation. transport of tritium in the Middle Loire River (France)
(Fig. 1), 350km long, over the period 01/01/1999-
31/12/1999. Four main tributary streams feed the
450
river: Vienne, Indre, Cher and Maine. Four Nuclear
Main Dam
Junction #1
Water level
Bottom Power Plants (NPP) are located along the Middle
400
Loire River and one NPP is located along the Vienne
350 Dam #2
Junction #2
River. These NPP generate low-activity radioactive
300
liquid waste, including tritium, which is released into
Dam #3 the river in a controlled way.
Level (m)

250
The Middle Loire River is modelled as one continu-
200 Dam #4
Junction #3
ous reach with the tributaries Vienne, Indre, Cher and
150
Maine as inflows.
100

50

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Distance along the main valley (km)

Figure 5: Initial water level conditions

This case includes several reaches where the mod-

elling of 2-D junctions is necessary.
The 1-D mesh has a size of about 2650 nodes. The
time step of the explicit scheme is variable depending
on a given Courant number smaller than 1. With these
settings, the results shown in figure 6 can be obtained
in approximately 1 mn on a standard workstation.

450
Water level at 31974 s
Water level at 15678 s
Figure 7: Location map showing the study reach
400 Water level at 5629 s
Water level at 1573 s
Bottom
350

300
Three hundreds and sixty-eight cross-sections
spaced at intervals of about 1 km are used to describe
Level (m)

250
the river geometry. The downstream boundary condi-
200 tion at MontJean sur Loire is a water stage-flow rate
150
curve. For the solute transport module, the tritium dis-
charge recorded at Belleville NPP during the period
100
01/01/1999 to 12/31/1999 is specified as the upstream
50 boundary. The tritium releases from Dampierre, Saint
0
Laurent and Chinon NPP on the same period are
0 20 40 60 80 100
Distance along the main valley (km)
introduced as lateral source terms. The tritium dis-
Figure 6: Water levels at different simulation times charge due to release from Civaux NPP is estimated
by applying the MASCARET System to the Vienne
River between Civaux NPP and Vienne-Loire junc-
tion. Monitoring of tritium concentration was per-
The validity of the MASCARET results is not formed during 1999 at Anger city.
shown for this particular case. However, several stud- Calibration of the hydraulic module (i.e. Stricklers
ies have already demonstrated the skill of the code for coefficients) is carried out using measured water level
such problems. See for example (Goutal and Maurel measurements collected along the Middle Loire River
2002) or (Malleron et al. 2011) for a comparison with at low, medium and high flow discharges. The Strick-
analytical solutions, measurements and other codes. ler coefficient is set at 30m−1/3 .s−1 . The longitudinal

5
dispersion coefficient is computed using the formula
proposed by (Seo and Cheong 1998). The first order
finite volume method is used. The numerical run is
carried out using a time step 10s and the space step is
200m. The courant number is set at 0.5. Figure 8 com-
pares the numerical predictions of the tritium concen-
tration against measurements at Anger city for two
months. Generally, the model-data fit is reasonably
well. The model reproduces the magnitude and gen-
eral temporal evolution of the tritium concentration
at Angers. The mean relative error is approximately
43%.
35
30
25
Concentration (Bq/l)
20
15
10
5
0
26/06 03/07 10/07 17/07
Figure 8: Comparison between calculated and mea-
sured tritium concentration at Angers city
5 CONCLUSIONS
The open-source MASCARET software is a system
dedicated to the solution of 1-D shallow-water equa-
tions with transport of passive pollutants. This system
benefits from 25 years of research and development at
EDF-R&D in collaboration with the CETMEF (tech-
nical branch of the Public works french department).
As detailed previously, the more appropriate scheme
has been integrated for each flow regime: Preissmann
scheme for subcritical flow and finite volume scheme
for unsteady supercitical flow. Moreover, a strong val-
idation has shown the robustness and relevance for
dealing with complex industrial studies. The last de-
velopments highlights the capability of the system to
evolve towards new applications : uncertainties, data
assimilation which are of main importance for real
time studies and flood hazard assessments. In a near
future, the MASCARET system will offer the capa-
bility to deal with flood plains by coupling between
1-D and 2-D models.
REFERENCES
Bernardara, P. et al. (2010). Uncertainty analysis in
flood hazard assessment: hydrological and hy-
draulic calibration. Canadian Journal of Civil
Engineering 37(7), 968–979.
Bivand, R. S. et al. (2008). Applied spatial data
analysis with R. Springer.
Bristeau, M.-O. et al. (2011, August). Numerical
simulations of a non-hydrostatic shallow water
model. Computers & Fluids 47(1), 51–64.
Carlier, M. (1998). Hydraulique générale et ap-
pliquée. Eyrolles.
De Rocquigny, E. et al. (2008). Uncertainties in
industrial practice — A guide to quantitative
Measurements
Predictions uncertainty management. Wiley-Blackwell.
DHI (2001). MIKE 11 Reference Manual. Ap-
pendix A Scientific background. Danish Hy-
draulic Institute.
El Kadi Abderrezzak, K. et al. (2012). Applica-
bility of longitudinal dispersion coefficient for-
mulas in 1-d numerical modeling of solute
transport in open channels. In River Flow 2012,
San Jose, Costa Rica.
Goutal, N. and F. Maurel (2002). A finite volume
24/07 31/07 07/08 14/08 21/08 28/08 04/09 solver for 1d shallow water equations applied
Date
to an actual river. International Journal for Nu-
merical Methods in Fluids 38, 1–19.
HRW (2001). ISIS 2001-User Manual. HR
Wallingford.
Krige, D. (1951). A statistical approach to some
basic mine valuation problem on the witwater-
srand. Journal of the Chemical, Metallurgical
and Mining Society of South Africa 52(6), 119–
139.
Malleron, N. et al. (2011). On the use of a high-
performance framework for efficient model
coupling in hydroinformatics. Environmental
Modelling & Software 26(12), 1747–1758.
Preissmann, A. (1961). Propagation des intumes-
cences dans les canaux et rivières. In 1er
congrès de l’Association Française de Calcul,
Grenoble, France.
Ricci, S. et al. (2011). Correction of upstream flow
and hydraulic state with data assimilation in
the context of flood forecasting. Hydrology and
Earth System Sciences 15(11), 3555–3575.
Rissoan, C. et al. (2002). 1d hydraulic simulation
of a dam break wave on the rhone river. In 5th
International Conference on Hydro-Science &
Engineering, Warsaw, Poland.
6
Roe, P. (1981, October). Approximate rie-
mann solvers, parameter vectors and dif-
ference schemes. Journal of Computational
Physics 43(2), 357–372.
Seo, I. W. and T. S. Cheong (1998). Predict-
ing longitudinal dispersion coefficient in nat-
ural stream. Journal of Hydraulic Engineer-
ing 124(1), 25–32.
Sobey, R. (2001). Evaluation of numerical models
of flood and tide propagation in channels. Jour-
nal of Hydraulic Engineering 127(10), 805–
824.
USACE (2002). HEC-RAS Hydraulic Reference
Manual. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Vazquez Cendon, M. (1994). Estudio de esquemas
descentrados para su aplicaciòn a las leyes
de conservaciòn hiperbòlicas con tèrminos
fuente. Ph. D. thesis, Universidad Santiago de
Compostella.

7
View publication stats