Documentation & support across tools
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On this page we provide a table that compares the usability of these models (in terms of ease of use of the interface, the documentation and the support) based on user ratings.
Need more help? If you have modelling questions that you cannot resolve by consulting the modelling tool's manual or other resources, we recommend trying the question and answer platform Stack Exchange, Earth Sciences subsite, to look for help (tag question with "hydrology" and "model"). If you have gained experience using a tool, consider using Stack Exchange to provide help to others so that the questions and answers become freely available to anyone online. Guidance on using this resource for hydrological modelling assistance can be found here.
User ratings across tools
In 2021, we surveyed the South African hydrological modelling community to ask them about their modelling background and level, which tools they used, and what their perceptions about these tools were. Specifically we asked them to rate the ease-of-use of the user interface, the ease-of-use of the documentation as well as the support of each modelling tool on a scale of 1-5, 1 being poor, 3 being satisfactory, and 5 being excellent. On 31 May 2021 we had 45 responses, and we summarised results here for any modelling tools that were reviewed by more than two people (i.e. sample size greater than 2). If you are choosing a modelling tool for your project, perhaps this table, as well as those on capabilities and specific use cases, would help you make a decision on which to select.
| Modelling tool | Interface | Documentation | Support | Sample Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACRU | 3.4 | 3.6 | 3.9 | 19 |
| WRSM-Pitman | 3.6 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 14 |
| SPATSIM-Pitman | 3.3 | 3.3 | 3.5 | 11 |
| SWAT | 3.6 | 3.9 | 3.8 | 9 |
| MIKE-SHE | 3.0 | 2.1 | 2.3 | 7 |
| WEAP | 3.4 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 7 |
| SCS-SA | 3.5 | 3.7 | 3.4 | 4 |
| WRYM | 3.7 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 3 |
| HYDRUS | 1.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2 |
Are you a South African hydrological modeler? Would you like to have your say? Feel free to participate in our survey here. We will update this page from time to time to reflect new data.